THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Helen  A.  Dillon 


ERISM 


VCAULAY 

dnnerton,     "will 

England"  (and 

D.  writes  in  the 


ROSF    MACAUI.AY 


M 

breezy  as  if  all 
;re  open.      Mr. 

..ablic  benefactor 

in  publishing  it."  Heywood 
Broun  in  the  New  York  Tribune 
writes: 

"POTTERISM 

is  one  of  the  best  books  of  the 
year"  and  the  New  York  Sun  in 
a  two-column  article  on  its  edi- 
torial page  said : 

"POTTERISM 

is  a  NOVEL  of  superlative 
cleverness,  a  modern  tabloid 
'Vanity  Fair' — it  is  a  delight  to 
see  a  thing  so  well  done."  The 
Chicago  Daily  News  adds: 

"POTTERISM 

is  a  word  that  bids  fair  to  pass 
into  the  language." 


"Potterism"  tells  the  story 
of  the  great  newspaper  mag- 
nate, Percy  Potter,  his  wife, 
Leila  Yorke,  who  writes  third 
rate  sentimental  novels  (one  of 
the  most  delicious  characteri- 
zations in  modern  fiction),  of 
their  twins,  Jane  and  John  and 
pretty  Potterish  sister  Clare. 
The  twins  just  out  of  Oxford, 
relentlessly  superior  and  de- 
termined to  remain  above  Pot- 
terism, form  The  Anti-Potterite 
League.  Other  league  mem- 
bers in  good  standing  are  Ar- 
thur Gideon,  whose  Jewish 
father  changed  his  name  to 
Sidney  when  he  married  a 
Christian  "lady,"  Katherine 
Varick,  a  new  woman  with  a 
very  old  ache  in  her  soul  and 
the  Honorable  Laurence  Juke, 
"a  radical  of  moderately  aris- 
tocratic lineage."  Jane,  the 
heroine  of  the  book  in  that  she 


drama,  one  of  the  tensest  of 
mysteries.  Hobart  is  killed,  or 
at  least  he  falls  down  a  fatal 
staircase.  Jane,  who  thinks 
more  of  Gideon  than  she  has 
admitted  to  herself,  suspects 
him  of  the  murder,  and  Arthur 
Gideon  who  has  loved  Jane 
from  the  first  time  he  watched 
"her  firm  little  sun-browned 
hand,"  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  is  the  only  out  and  out  anti- 
Potterite  in  the  novel  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Kather- 
ine, feels  sure  that  Jane  is 
guilty.  So  they  avoid  each 
other  and  might  have  kept 
apart  had  not  Leila  Yorke 
spoken  her  mind.  Gideon  is 
attacked  in  the  Potter  press 
and  then  the  story  quickly 
comes  to  its  brilliant  and  in- 
evitable denouement.  .Such  a 
raw  synopsis  of  what  The  Re- 
view calls  "this  brilliant  and 
varied  book"  is,  of  course,  a 


is  so  much  like  all  of  us  in  our,  *•*•  injustice  to  such  a  fine 
Potterism,  is  much  at-  work  of  art.  So  we  must  be  par- 
doned for  adding  a  few  more 
quotations  from  our  leading 
critics.  The  Nation  says:  "  'Pot- 
terism' is  both  brilliant  and 


own 

tracted  to  Gideon,  but  when 
•he  meets  Oliver  Hobart,  the 
editor  of  one  of  her  father's 
Potterish  papers  "and  a  per- 


******       *™        s^»  ^  •  .     *11<       1  VI  • 

feet    Gibson    type,"    her    true  fkillful,  a  notable  story  and  an 

spiritual  side  comes  to  the  sur-  incisive    criticism   of    life.     Its 

face.    Jane    and     Hobart    are  narrative  technique  shares  the 

thrown  much  together  in  Paris  *eeness   and   distinction   of  its 

during  the  time  of  the  Peace  intellectual     outlook."     Lewel- 

Conference,  which  by  the  way  Ivn   Jones   writes   in  The  Chi- 

is  vividly  illuminated  by   Miss  «**°  Evening  Post  "One  hopes 

Macaulay's  vivid  pen.     And  it  f?r  our  crfdlt  *»*  reading  na- 

seems    that    Hobart    wants  to  *»?«; that  *h»»  well  written  novel 

marry     Jane    and     not     pretty  ™U  r5acjj  »«•  1?0'?0(>  ma,rk;  m 

Clare  who  is  head  over  heels  in  America.       And  Hie  Philadel- 

iove  with  him.     Then  when  no  P«La     N?rtlJ     American     says 
one  expects  it,  in  a  book  like        Potterism     sweeps     through 

"Potterism,"     there     is     intro-  the    "l1^  .clov.fd    Wlth    »cnt|- 

duced,   not  for  good   measure,  mental  fiction  like  a 

but  to  legitimately  develop  the  *        North, 
characters  in  this  swift 


POTTERISM 


POTTERISM 


BY 


ROSE  MACAULAY 


BONI      AND     LIVERIGHT 
PUBLISHERS       NEWYORK 


Copyright,  1920,  by 

BONI  &  LlVERIGHT 


First  edition September,  1980 

Second  edition September,  1920 

Third  edition October,  1930 

Fourth  edition October,  1920 

Fifth  edition October,  1920 

Sixth  edition October,  1920 

Seventh  edition November,  19SO 

Eighth  edition November,  1910 

Ninth  edition November,  1920 

Tenth  edition November,  19SO 

Eleventh  edition December,  1920 

Twelfth  edition.. December,  1920 

Thirteenth  edition December,  19SO 

Fourteenth  edition December,  1920 

Fifteenth  edition December,  19SO 

Sixteenth  edition December,  1920 

Seventeenth  edition December,  1920 

Eighteenth  edition December,  1920 

Nineteenth  edition December,  1920 

Twentieth  edition December,  1920 

Twenty-first  edition January,  1921 

Twenty-second  edition January,  1921 

Twenty-third  edition January,  1921 

Twenty-fourth  edition Febniary,  1981 

Twenty-fifth  edition February,  1921 

Twenty-tilth  edition February,  19S1 

Twenty-seventh  edition February,  1921 

Twenty-eighth  edition February,  1921 

Twenty-ninth  edition March,  19S1 

Thirtieth  edition March,  1921 

Thirty-first  edition March,  1921 


POTTERISM 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


College 
Library 

PE 

Go  2  b 

M  i  I  p 
I92O 


TO  THE 
UNSENTIMENTAL  PRECISIANS  IN  THOUGHT, 

WHO  HAVE,  ON  THIS  CONFUSED, 

INACCURATE,  AND  EMOTIONAL  PLANET, 

NO  FIT  HABITATION 


323 


'They  contract  a  Habit  of  talking  loosely  and  confusedly.' 

J.  CLARKE. 

'My  dear  friend,  clear  your  mind  of  cant.  .  .  .  Don't  thinie 
foolishly.'  SAMUEL  JOHNSON. 

'On  the  whole  we  are 

Not  intelligent — 

No,  no,  no,  not  intelligent.' 

W.  S.  GILBERT. 

'Truth  may  perhaps  come  to  the  price  of  a  Pearle,  that 
sheweth  best  by  day;  But  it  will  not  rise  to  the  price  of  a 
Diamond  or  Carbuncle,  that  sheweth  best  in  varied  lights. 
A  mixture  of  a  Lie  doth  ever  adde  Pleasure.  Doth  any  man 
doubt,  that  if  there  were  taken  out  of  men's  mindes  Vaine 
Opinions,  Flattering  Hopes,  False  Valuations,  Imaginations 
as  one  would,  and  the  like,  but  it  would  leave  the  Mindes  of  a 
Number  of  Men  poore  shrunken  Things,  full  of  Melancholy  and 
Indisposition  and  unpleasing  to  themselves?' 

FRANCIS  BACON. 

j     'What  is  it  that  smears  the  windows  of  the  senses?    Thought, 
f   convention,  self-interest.  .  .  .  We  see  the  narrow  world  our 
1    windows  show  us  not  in  itself,  but  in  relation  to  our  own  needs, 
N  moods,  and  preferences  .  .  .  for  the  universe  of  the  natural 
man  is  strictly  egocentric.  .  .  .  Unless  we  happen  to  be  artists — 
and  then  but  rarely — we  never  know  the  "thing  seen"  in  its 
purity;  never  from  birth  to  death,  look  at  it  with  disinterested 
eyes.  ...  It  is  disinterestedness,  the  saint's  and  poet's  love  of  ) 
j  things  for  their  own  sakes  .  .  .  which  is  the  condition  of  all  ( 
real  knowledge.  .  .  .  When  .  .  .  the  verb  "to  have"  is  ejected 
from  the  centre  of  your  consciousness  .  .  .  your  attitude  to  life 
will  cease  to  be  commercial  and  become  artistic.     Then  the 
guardian  at  the  gate,  scrutinising  and  sorting  the  incoming 
impressions,  will  no  longer  ask,  "What  use  is  this  to  me?"  .  .  . 
You  see  things  at  last  as  the  artist  does,  for  their  sake,  not  for 
your  own.'  EVELYN  UNDERBILL. 


Vll 


CONTENTS 
PART  I.— TOLD  BY  R.  M. 

PAGE 

I.  POTTERS  I 

II.  ANTI-POTTERS  13 

III.  OPPORTUNITY  2O 

IV.  JANE   AND   CLARE  33 

PART  II.— TOLD  BY  GIDEON 

I.      SPINNING  46 

II.      DINING  WITH  THE  HOBARTS  63 

III.       SEEING   JANE  75 

PART  III.— TOLD  BY  LEILA  YORKE 

I.      THE  TERRIBLE  TRAGEDY  ON  THE  STAIRS  89 

II.      AN   AWFUL    SUSPICION 

PART  IV.— TOLD  BY  {CATHERINE  VARICK 

A  BRANCH  OF  STUDY  12$ 

PART  V.— TOLD  BY  JUKE 

GIVING  ADVICE  147 

iz 


x  CONTENTS 

PART  VI.— TOLD  BY  R.  M. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  THE  END  OF  A  POTTER  MELODRAMA  176 

II.  ENGAGED  TO   BE   MARRIED  187 

III.  THE  PRECISIAN  AT  WAR  WITH  THE  WORLD  193 

IV.  RUNNING  AWAY  2O7 
V.  A  PLACARD  FOR  THE  PRESS 


POTTERISM 


POTTER1SM 

PART  I 

TOLD  BY  R.   M. 
CHAPTER  I 

POTTERS 


JOHNNY  and  Jane  Potter,  being  twins,  went  through 
Oxford  together.  Johnny  came  up  from  Rugby  and 
Jane  from  Roedean.  Johnny  was  at  Balliol  and  Jane  at 
Somerville.  Both,  having  ambitions  for  literary  careers, 
took  the  Honours  School  of  English  Language  and  Liter- 
ature. They  were  ordinary  enough  young  people;  clever 
without  being  brilliant,  nice-looking  without  being  hand- 
some, active  without  being  athletic,  keen  without  being 
earnest,  popular  without  being  leaders,  open-handed  without 
being  generous,  as  revolutionary,  as  selfish,  and  as  intellec- 
tually snobbish  as  was  proper  to  their  years,  and  inclined 
to  be  jealous  one  of  the  other,  but  linked  together  by  com- 
mon tastes  and  by  a  deep  and  bitter  distaste  for  their 
father's  newspapers,  which  were  many,  and  for  their 
mother's  novels,  which  were  more.  These  were,  indeed, 
not  fit  for  perusal  at  Somerville  and  Balliol.  The  danger 
had  been  that  Somerville  and  Balliol,  till  they  knew  you 
well,  should  not  know  you  knew  it. 

i 


2  POTTERISM 

In  their  first  year,  the  mother  of  Johnny  and  Jane 
("Leila  Yorke,"  with  "Mrs.  Potter"  in  brackets  after  it), 
had,  after  spending  Eight  Weeks  at  Oxford,  announced 
her  intention  of  writing  an  Oxford  novel.  Oh,  God, 
Jane  had  cried  within  herself,  not  that;  anything  but 
that;  and  firmly  she  and  Johnny  had  told  her  mother  that 
already  there  were  Kedcty,  and  Sinster  Street,  and  The 
Pearl,  and  The  Girls  of  St.  Ursulas  (by  Annie  S.  Swan: 
"After  the  races  were  over,  the  girls  sculled  their  college 
barge  briskly  down  the  river,"),  and  that,  in  short,  the 
thing  had  been  done  for  good  and  all,  and  that  was  that. 

Mrs.  Potter  still  thought  she  would  like  to  write  an 
Oxford  novel.  Because,  after  all,  though  there  might  be 
many  already,  none  of  them  were  quite  like  the  one  she 
would  write.  She  had  tea  with  Jane  in  the  Somerville 
garden  on  Sunday,  and  though  Jane  did  not  ask  any  of  her 
friends  to  meet  her  (for  they  might  have  got  put  in)  she 
saw  them  all  about,  and  thought  what  a  nice  novel  they 
would  make.  Jane  knew  she  was  thinking  this,  and  said, 
"They're  very  commonplace  people,"  in  a  discouraging  tone. 
"Some  of  them,"  Jane  added,  deserting  her  own  snobbish- 
ness, which  was  intellectual,  for  her  mother's,  which  was 
social,  "are  also  common." 

"There  must  be  very  many,"  said  Mrs.  Potter,  looking 
through  her  lorgnette  at  the  garden  of  girls,  "who  are 
neither." 

"Fewer,"  said  Jane  stubbornly,  "than  you  would  think. 
Most  people  are  one  or  the  other,  I  find.  Many  are  both." 

"Try  not  to  be  cynical,  my  pet,"  said  Leila  Yorke,  who 
was  never  this. 


That  was  in  June,    1912.     In  June,    1914,   Jane  and 
Johnny  went  down. 


POTTERISM  3 

Their  University  careers  had  been  creditable,  if  not 
particularly  conspicuous.  Johnny  had  been  a  fluent  speaker 
at  the  Union,  Jane  at  the  women's  inter-collegiate  Debating 
Society,  and  also  in  the  Somerville  parliament,  where  she 
had  been  the  leader  of  the  Labour  Party.  Johnny  had 
for  a  time  edited  the  Isis,  Jane  the  Fritillary.  Johnny  had 
done  respectably  in  Schools,  Jane  rather  better.  For  Jane  \ 
had  always  been  just  a  shade  the  cleverer;  not  enough  to 
spoil  competition,  but  enough  to  give  Johnny  rather  harder 
work  to  achieve  the  same  results.  They  had  probably  both 
got  firsts,  but  Jane's  would  be  a  safe  thing,  and  Johnny 
would  be  likely  to  have  a  longish  viva. 

Anyhow,  here  they  were,  just  returned  to  Potter's  Bar, 
Herts,  (where  Mr.  Percy  Potter,  liking  the  name  of  the 
village,  had  lately  built  a  lordly  mansion).  Excellent 
friends  they  were,  but  as  jealous  as  two  little  dogs,  each 
for  ever  on  the  look-out  to  see  that  the  other  got  no  undue 
advantage.  Both  saw  every  reason  why  they  should  make 
a  success  of  life.  But  Jane  knew  that  though  she  might 
be  one  up  on  Johnny  as  regards  Oxford,  owing  to  slightly 
superior  brain  power,  he  was  one  up  on  her  as  regards 
Life,  owing  to  that  awful  business  sex.  Women  were  hand- 
icapped; they  had  to  fight  much  harder  to  achieve  equal 
results.  People  didn't  give  them  jobs  in  the  same  way. 
Young  men  possessed  the  earth;  young  women  had  to 
wrest  what  they  wanted  out  of  it  piecemeal.  Johnny 
might  end  a  cabinet  minister,  a  notorious  journalist,  a 
Labour  leader,  anything.  .  .  .  Women's  jobs  were,  as  a  7 
rule,  so  dowdy  and  unimportant.  Jane  was  bored  to  death  \ 
with  this  sex  business;  it  wasn't  fair.  But  Jane  was  deter-/ 
mined  to  live  it  down.  She  wouldn't  be  put  off  with 
second-rate  jobs;  she  wouldn't  be  dowdy  and  unimportant, 
like  her  mother  and  the  other  fools ;  she  would  have  the  best  j 
that  was  going. 


POTTERISM 


The  family  dined.  At  one  end  of  the  table  was  Mr. 
Potter;  a  small,  bird-like  person,  of  no  presence;  you  had 
not  thought  he  was  so  great  a  man  as  Potter  of  the  Potter 
Press.  For  it  was  a  great  press;  though  not  so  great  as 
the  Northcliffe  Press,  for  it  did  not  produce  anything  so 
good  as  the  Times  or  so  bad  as  the  Weekly  Despatch',  it 
was  more  of  a  piece. 

Both  commonplace  and  common  was  Mr.  Percy  Potter 
(according  to  some  standards),  but  clever,  with  immense 
patience,  a  saving  sense  of  humour,   and  that  imaginative 
vision  without  which  no  newspaper  owner,  financier,  general, 
politician,  poet,  or  criminal  can  be  great.     He  was,  in  fact, 
greater  than  the  twins  would  ever  be,  because  he  was  not  i 
at  odds  with  his  material :  he  found  such  stuff  as  his  dreams  | 
were  made  of  ready  to  his  hand,  in  the  great  heart  of  the 
public — the  last  place  where  the  twins  would  have  thought  / 
of  looking. 

So  did  his  wife.  She  was  pink-faced  and  not  ill-looking, 
with  the  cold  blue  eyes  and  rather  set  mouth  possessed 
(inexplicably)  by  many  writers  of  fiction.  If  I  have  con- 
veyed the  impression  that  Leila  York  was  in  the  lowest 
division  of  this  class,  I  have  done  her  less  than  justice; 
quite  a  number  of  novelists  were  worse.  This  was  not 
much  satisfaction  to  her  children.  Jane  said,  "If  you  do  that 
sort  of  thing  at  all,  you  might  as  well  make  a  job  of  it, 
and  sell  a  million  copies.  I'd  rather  be  Mrs.  Barclay  or 
Ethel  Dell  or  Charles  Garvice  or  Gene  Stratton  Porter  or 
Ruby  Ayres  than  mother.  Mother's  merely  commonplace; 
she's  not  even  a  by-word — quite.  I  admire  dad  more.  Dad 
anyhow  gets  there.  His  stuff  sells." 

Mrs.  Potter's  novels,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  sold  quite 
creditably.  They  were  pleasant  to  many,  readable  by  more, 


POTTERISM  5 

and  quite  unmarred  by  any  spark  of  cleverness,  flash  of  wit, 
or  morbid  taint  of  philosophy.  Gently  and  unsurprisingly 
she  wrote  of  life  and  love  as  she  believed  these  two  things 
to  be,  and  found  a  home  in  the  hearts  of  many  fellow- 
believers.  She  bored  no  one  who  read  her,  because  she 
could  be  relied  on  to  give  them  what  they  hoped  to  find — 
and  of  how  few  of  us,  alas,  can  this  be  said!  And — she 
used  to  say  it  was  because  she  was  a  mother — her  books 
were  safe  for  the  youngest  jeune  fille,  and  in  these  days  (even 
in  those  days  it  was  so)  of  loose  morality  and  frank  realism, 
how  important  this  is. 

"I  hope  I  am  as  modern  as  any  one,"  Mrs.  Potter  would 
say,  "but  I  see  no  call  to  be  indecent." 

So  many  writers  do  see,  or  rather  hear,  this  call,  a^id 
obey  it  faithfully,  that  many  a  parent  was  grateful  to  Leila 
Yorke. 

On  her  right  sat  her  eldest  son,  Frank,  who  was  a  curate 
in  Pimlico.  In  Frank's  face,  which  was  sharp  and  thin,  like 
his  father's,  were  the  marks  of  some  conflict  which  his 
father's  did  not  know.  You  somehow  felt  that  each  of  the 
other  Potters  had  one  aim,  and  that  Frank  had,  or,  anyhow, 
felt  that  he  ought  to  have,  another  besides,  however  feebly 
he  aimed  at  it. 

Next  him  sat  his  young  wife,  who  had,  again,  only  the 
one.  She  was  pretty  and  jolly  and  brunette,  and  twisted 
Frank  round  her  fingers. 

Beyond  her  sat  Clare,  the  eldest  daughter,  and  the 
daughter  at  home.  She  read  her  mother's  novels  and  her 
father's  papers,  and  saw  no  harm  in  either.  She  thought 
the  twins  perverse  and  conceited,  which  came  from  being 
clever  at  school  and  college.  Clare  had  never  been  clever 
at  anything  but  domestic  jobs  and  needlework.  She  was  a 
nice,  pretty  girl,  and  expected  to  marry.  She  snubbed 


6  POTTERISM 

Jane,  and  Jane,  in  her  irritating  and  nonchalant  way,  was 
rude  to  her. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  table  sat  the  twins,  stocky  and 
square-built,  and  looking  very  young,  with  broad  jaws  and 
foreheads  and  wide-set  gray  eyes.  Jane  was,  to  look  at, 
something  like  an  attractive  little  plump  white  pig.  It  is 
not  necessary,  at  the  moment,  to  say  more  about  her  appear- 
ance than  this,  except  that,  when  the  time  came  to  bob 
the  hair,  she  bobbed  it. 

Johnny  was  as  sturdy  but  rather  less  chubby,  and  his  chin 
stuck  out  farther.  They  had  the  same  kind  of  smile,  and 
square  white  teeth,  and  were  greedy.  When  they  had 
been  little,  they  had  watched  each  other's  plates  with  hostile 
eyes,  to  see  that  neither  got  too  large  a  helping. 


Those  of  us  who  are  old  enough  will  remember  that  in 
June  and  July  1914,  the  conversation  turned  largely  and 
tediously  on  militant  suffragists,  Irish  rebels,  and  strikers. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  the  age  of  violent  enforcements  of 
decision  by  physical  action  which  has  lasted  ever  since  and 
shows  as  yet  no  signs  of  passing.  The  Potter  press,  like 
so  many  other  presses,  snubbed  the  militant  suffragists, 
smiled  half  approvingly  on  Carson's  rebels,  and  frowned 
wholly  disapprovingly  on  the  strikers.  It  was  a  curious  age, 
so  near  and  yet  so  far,  when  the  ordered  frame  of  things 
was  still  unbroken,  and  violence  a  child's  dream,  and  poetry 
and  art  were  taken  with  immense  seriousness.  Those  of  us  / 
who  can  remember  it  should  do  so,  for  it  will  not  return. 
It  has  given  place  to  the  age  of  melodrama,  when  nothing 
is  too  strange  to  happen,  and  no  one  is  ever  surprised.  That, 
too,  may  pass,  but  probably  will  not,  for  it  is  primeval. 


POTTERISM  7 

The  other  was  artificial,  a  mere  product  of  civilisation,  and 
could  not  last. 

It  was  in  the  intervals  of  talking  about  the  militants  (a 
conversation  much  like  other  conversations  on  the  same 
topic,  which  were  tedious  even  at  the  time,  and  now  will 
certainly  not  bear  recording)  that  Mrs.  Frank  said  to  the 
twins,  "What  are  you  two  going  to  play  at  now?" 

So  extensive  a  question,  opening  such  vistas.  It  would 
have  taken,  if  not  less  time,  anyhow  less  trouble,  to  have 
told  Mrs.  Frank  what  they  were  not  going  to  play  at. 

The  devil  of  mischief  looked  out  of  Johnny's  gray  eyes, 
as  he  nearly  said,  "We  are  going  to  fight  Leila  Yorke 
fiction  and  the  Potter  press." 

Choking  it  back,  he  said,  succinctly,  "Publishing,  journal- 
ism, and  writing.  At  least,  I  am." 

"He  means,"  Mr.  Potter  interpolated,  in  his  small,  nasal 
voice,  "that  he  has  obtained  a  small  and  subordinate  job 
with  a  firm  of  publishers,  and  hopes  also  to  contribute  to 
an  obscure  weekly  paper  run  by  a  friend  of  his." 

"Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Frank.  "Not  one  of  your  papers,  pater? 
Can't  be,  if  it's  obscure,  can  it?" 

"No,  not  one  of  my  papers.  A  periodical  called,  I  believe, 
the  Weekly  Comment,  with  which  you  may  or  may  not  be 
familiar." 

"Never  heard  of  it,  I'm  afraid,"  Mrs.  Frank  confessed, 
truly.  "Why  don't  you  go  on  to  one  of  the  family  concerns, 
Johnny?  You'd  get  on  much  quicker  there,  with  pater  to 
shove  you." 

"Probably,"  Johnny  agreed. 

"My  papers,"  said  Mr.  Potter  dryly,  "are  not  quite  up 
to  Johnny's  intellectual  level.  Nor  Jane's.  Neither  do 
they  accord  with  their  political  sympathies." 

"Oh,  I  forgot  you  two  were  silly  old  socialists.  Never 
mind,  that'll  pass  when  they  grow  up,  won't  it,  Frank?" 


8  POTTERISM 

Secretly,  Mrs.  Frank  thought  that  the  twins  had  the 
disease  because  the  Potter  family,  however  respectable  now, 
wasn't  really  "top-drawer." 

Funny  old  pater  had,  every  one  knew,  begun  his  career  as 
a  reporter  on  a  provincial  paper.  If  funny  old  pater  had 
been  just  a  shade  less  clever  or  enterprising,  his  family 
would  have  been  educated  at  grammar  schools  and  gone 
into  business  in  their  teens.  Of  course,  Mrs.  Potter  had 
pulled  the  social  level  up  a  bit;  but  what,  if  you  came  to 
that,  had  Mrs.  Potter  been?  Only  the  daughter  of  a  coun- 
try doctor;  only  the  underpaid  secretary  of  a  lady  novelist, 
for  all  she  was  so  conceited  now. 

/      So  naturally  socialism,  that  disease  of  the  underbred,  had 
^  taken  hold  of  the  less  careful  of  the  Potter  young. 

"And  are  you  going  to  write  for  this  weekly  what-d'you- 
call-it  too,  Jane?"  Mrs.  Frank  inquired. 

"No.  I've  not  got  a  job  yet.  Fm  going  to  look  round  a 
little  first." 

"Oh,  that's  sense.  Have  a  good  time  at  home  for  a  bit. 
Well,  it's  time  you  had  a  holiday,  isn't  it?  I  wish  old 
Frank  could.  He's  working  like  an  old  horse.  He  may 
slave  himself  to  death  for  those  Pimlico  pigs,  for  all  any 
of  them  care.  It's  never  'thank  you;'  it's  always  'more, 
more,  more,'  with  them.  That's  your  socialism,  Johnny." 

The  twins  had  got  on  very  well  with  their  sister-in-law, 
but  thought  her  a  fool.  When,  as  she  as  fond  of  doing,  she 
mentioned  socialism,  they  always  changed  the  subject,  rightly 
believing  her  grasp  of  that  economic  system  to  be  even  less 
complete  than  that  of  most  people. 

But  on  this  occasion  they  did  not  have  time  to  change 
it  before  Clare  said,  "Mother's  writing  a  novel  about  social- 
ism. She  shows  it  up  like  anything." 

Mrs.  Potter  smiled. 

"I  confess  I  am  trying  my  hand  at  the  burning  subject. 


POTTERISM  9 

But  as  for  showing  it  up — well,  I  am  being  fair  to  both 
sides,  I  think.  I  don't  feel  I  can  quite  condemn  it  wholesale, 
as  Peggy  does.  I  find  it  very  difficult  to  treat  anything 
like  that — I  can't  help  seeing  all  round  a  thing.  I'm 
told  it's  a  weakness,  and  that  I  should  get  on  better  if  I 
saw  everything  in  black  and  white,  as  so  many  people  do, 
but  it's  no  use  my  trying  to  alter,  at  my  time  of  life.  One 
has  to  write  in  one's  way  or  not  at  all." 

"Anyhow,"  said  Clare,  "it's  going  to  be  a  ripping  book, 
Socialist  Cecily,  quite  one  of  your  best,  mother." 

Clare  had  always  been  her  mother's  great  stand-by  in  the 
matter  of  literature.  She  was  also  useful  as  a  touchstone, 
as  a  foolometer,  though  her  mother  did  not  call  her  that.  If 
a  book  went  with  Clare,  it  went  with  Leila  Yorke's  public 
beyond.  Mr.  Potter  was  a  less  satisfactory  reader;  he  re- 
garded his  wife's  bocks  as  goods  for  sale,  and  his  comments 
were,  "That  should  go  all  right.  That's  done  it,"  which  at- 
titude, though  commercially  helpful,  was  less  really  satisfying 
to  the  creator  than  Clare's  uncritical  absorption  in  the  char- 
acters and  the  story.  Clare  was,  in  fact,  the  public,  while 
Mr.  Potter  was  more  the  salesman. 

And  the  twins  were  neither,  but  more  like  the  less  agree- 
able type  of  reviewer,  when  they  deigned  to  rend  or  comment 
on  their  mother's  books  at  all,  which  was  not  always. 
Johnny's  attitude  towards  his  mother  suggested  that  he 
might  say  politely,  if  she  mentioned  her  books,  "Oh,  do 
vou  write?"  Mrs.  Potter  was  rather  sadly  aware  that 
she  made  no  appeal  to  the  twins.  Bjt  then,  as  Clare 
reminded  her,  the  twins,  since  they  had  gone  to  Oxford, 
never  admitted  that  they  cared  for  any  books  that  normal 
people  cared  for.  They  were  like  that;  conceited  and 
contrary. 

To  change  the  subject  (so  many  subjects  are  the  better 
for  being  changed,  as  all  those  who  know  family  life  will 


io  POTTERISM 


Jane  said,  "Johnny  and  I  are  going  on  a  reading-party 
next  month." 

"A  little  late  in  the  day,  isn't  it?"  commented  Frank, 
the  only  one  who  knew  Oxford  habits.  "Unless  it's  to 
look  up  all  the  howlers  you've  made." 

"Well,"  Jane  admitted,  "it  won't  be  so  much  reading 
really  as  observing.  It's  a  party  of  investigation,  as  a 
matter  of  fact." 

"What  do  you  investigate?    Beetles,  or  social  conditions?" 

"People.  Their  tastes,  habits,  outlook,  and  mental 
diseases.  What  they  want,  and  why  they  want  it,  and  what 
the  cure  is.  We  belong  to  a  society  for  inquiring  into 
such  things." 

"You  would,"  said  Clare,  who  always  rose  when  the 
twins  meant  her  to. 

"Aren't  they  cautions,"  said  Mrs.  Frank,  more  good- 
humouredly. 

Mrs.  Potter  said,  "That's  a  very  interesting  idea.  I  think 
I  must  join  this  society.  It  would  help  me  in  my  work. 
What  is  it  called,  children?" 

"Oh,"  said  Jane,  and  had  the  grace  to  look  ashamed, 
"it  really  hardly  exists  yet." 

But  as  she  said  it  she  met  the  sharp  and  shrewd  eyes  of 
Mr.  Potter,  and  knew  that  he  knew  she  was  referring  to 
the  Anti-Potter  League. 


Mr.  Potter  would  not,  indeed,  have  been  worthy  of  his 

reputation  had  he  not  been  aware,  from  its  inception,  of  the 

I     existence  of  this  League.     Journalists  have  to  be  aware  of 

such  things.    He  in  no  way  resented  the  League;  he  brushed 

it  aside  as  of  no  account.     And,  indeed,  it  was  not  aimed 

I   at  him  personally,  nor  at  his  wife  personally,  but  at  the 

great  mass  of  thought — or  of  incoherent,  muddled  emotion 


POTTERISM  ii 

that  passed  for  thought — which  the  Anti-Potters  had  agreed, 
for  brevity's  sake,  to  call  "Potterism."  Potterism  had  very 
certainly  not  been  created  by  the  Potters,  and  was  indeed 
no  better  represented  by  the  goods  with  which  they  supplied 
the  market  than  by  those  of  many  others;  but  it  was  a 
handy  name,  and  it  had  taken  the  public  fancy  that  here 
you  had  two  Potters  linked  together,  two  souls  nobly  yoked, 
one  supplying  Potterism  in  fictional,  the  other  in  newspaper, 
form.  So  the  name  caught,  about  the  year  1912. 

The  twins  both  heard  it  used  at  Oxford,  in  their  second 
year.  They  recognised  its  meaning  without  being  told. 
And  both  felt  that  it  was  up  to  them  to  take  the  opportunity 
of  testifying,  of  severing  any  connection  that  might  yet 
exist  in  any  one's  mind  between  them  and  the  other  products 
of  their  parents.  They  did  so,  with  the  uncompromising 
decision  proper  to  their  years,  and  with,  perhaps,  the  touch 
of  indecency,  regardlessness  of  the  proprieties,  which  was 
characteristic  of  them.  Their  friends  soon  discovered  that 
they  need  not  guard  their  tongues  in  speaking  of  Potterism 
before  the  Potter  twins.  The  way  the  twins  put  it  was, 
"Our  family  is  responsible  for  more  than  its  share  of  the 
beastly  thing;  the  least  we  can  do  is  to  help  down  it," 
which  sounded  chivalrous.  And  another  way  they  put  it 
was,  "We're  not  going  to  have  any  one  connecting  us  with 
it,"  which  sounded  sensible. 

So  they  joined  the  Anti-Potter  League,  not  blind  to  the 
piquant  humour  of  their  being  found  therein. 


Mr.  Potter  said  to  the  twins,  in  his  thin  little  voice, 
"Don't  mind  mother  and  me,  children.  Tell  us  all  about 
the  A.P.L.  It  may  do  us  good." 

But  the  twins  knew  it  would  not  do  their  mother  good. 
It  would  need  too  much  explanation ;  and  then  she  would 


12  POTTERISM 

still  not  understand.  She  might  even  be  very  angry,  as  she 
was  (though  she  pretended  she  was  only  amused)  with 
some  reviewers.  ...  If  your  mother  is  Leila  Yorke,  and 
has  hard  blue  eyes  and  no  sense  of  humour,  but  a  most 
enormous  sense  of  importance,  you  cannot  even  begin  to  ex- 
plain to  her  things  like  Potterism,  or  the  Anti-Potter 
League,  and  still  less  how  it  is  that  you  belong  to  the  latter. 

The  twins,  who  had  got  firsts  in  Schools,  knew  this  much. 

Johnny  improvised  hastily,  with  innocent  gray  eyes  on  his 
father's,  "It's  one  of  the  rules  that  you  mayn't  talk  about 
it  outside.  Anti-Propaganda  League,  it  is,  you  see  ...  for 
letting  other  people  alone  .  .  ." 

"Well,"  said  Mr.   Potter,  who  was  not  spiteful   to  his 
children,  and  preferred  his  wife  unruffled,  "we'll  let  you  off  "•, 
this  time.     But  you  can  take  my  word  for  it,  it's  a  silly 
business.     Mother  and  I  will  last  a  great  deal  longer  than7 
it  does.     Because  we  take  our  stand  on  human  nature,  andN 
you  won't  destroy  that  with  Leagues." 

Sometimes  the  twins  were  almost  afraid  they  wouldn't. 

"You're  all  very  cryptic  to-night,"  Frank  said. 

Then  Mrs.  Potter  and  the  girls  left  the  dining-room,  and 
Frank  and  his  father  discussed  the  disestablishment  of  the 
Church  in  Wales,  a  measure  which  Frank  thought  would  be 
a  pity,  but  which  was  advocated  by  the  Potter  press. 

Johnny  cracked  nuts  in  silence.  He  thought  the  Church 
insincere,  a  put-up  job,  but  that  dissenters  were  worse. 
They  should  all  be  abolished,  with  other  shams.  For  a 
short  time  at  Oxford  he  had  given  the  Church  a  trial, 
even  felt  real  admiration  for  it,  under  the  influence  of  his 
friend  Juke,  and  after  hearing  sermons  from  Father  Wag- 
gett,  Dr.  Dearmer,  and  Canon  Adderley.  But  he  had 
soon  given  it  up,  seen  it  wouldn't  do;  the  above-mentioned 
priests  were  not  representative;  the  Church  as  a  whole 
canted,  was  hypocritical  and  Potterish,  and  must  go. 


CHAPTER  II 

ANTI-POTTERS 
1 

THE  quest  of  Potterism,  its  causes  and  its  cure,  took 
the  party  of  investigation  first  to  the  Cornish  coast. 
Partly  because  of  bathing  and  boating,  and  partly  because 
Gideon,  the  organiser  of  the  party,  wanted  to  find  out  if 
there  was  much  Potterism  in  Cornwall,  or  if  Celticism  had 
withstood  it.  For  Potterism,  they  had  decided,  was  mainly 
an  Anglo-Saxon  disease.  Worst  of  all  in  America,  that 
great  home  of  commerce,  success,  and  the  booming  of  the 
second-rate.  Less  discernible  in  the  Latin  countries,  which 
they  hoped  later  on  to  explore,  and  hardly  existing  in  the 
Slavs.  In  Russia,  said  Gideon,  who  loathed  Russians,  be- 
cause he  was  half  a  Jew,  it  practically  did  not  exist.  The 
Russians  were  without  shame  and  without  cant,  saw  things 
as  they  were,  and  proceeded  to  make  them  a  good  deal 
worse.  That  was  barbarity,  imbecility,  and  devilishness, 
but  it  was  not  Potterism,  said  Gideon  grimly.  Gideon's 
grandparents  had  been  massacred  in  an  Odessa  pogrom ; 
his  father  had  been  taken  at  the  age  of  five  to  England  by 
an  aunt,  become  nationalised,  taken  the  name  of  Sidney, 
married  an  Englishwoman,  and  achieved  success  and  wealth 
as  a  banker.  His  son  Arthur  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
men  of  his  year  at  Oxford,  regarded  Russians,  Jews,  and 
British  with  cynical  dislike,  and  had,  on  turning  twenty-one, 
reverted  to  his  family  name  in  its  English  form,  finding  it 


H  POTTERISM 

a  Potterish  act  on  his  father's  part  to  have  become  Sidney. 
Few  of  his  friends  remembered  to  call  him  by  his  new  name, 
and  his  parents  ignored  it,  but  to  wear  it  gave  him  a  grim 
satisfaction. 

Such  was  Arthur  Gideon,  a  lean-faced,  black-eyed  man, 
biting  his  nails  like  Fagin  when  he  got  excited. 

The  other  man,  besides  Johnny  Potter,  was  the  Honour- 
able Laurence  Juke,  a  radical  of  moderately  artistocratic 
lineage,  a  clever  writer  and  actor,  who  had  just  taken 
deacon's  orders.  Juke  had  a  look  at  once  languid  and 
amused,  a  well-shaped,  smooth  brown  head,  blunt  features, 
the  introspective,  wide-set  eyes  of  the  mystic,  and  the  sweet, 
flexible  voice  of  the  actor  (his  mother  had,  in  fact,  been  a 
well-known  actress  of  the  eighties). 

The  two  women  were  Jane  Potter  and  Katherine  Varick. 
Katherine  Varick  had  frosty  blue  eyes,  a  pale,  square- 
jawed,  slightly  cynical  face,  a  first  in  Natural  Science,  and 
a  chemical  research  fellowship. 

In  those  happy  days  it  was  easy  to  stay  in  places,  even 
by  the  sea,  and  they  stayed  first  at  the  fishing  village  of 
Mevagissey.  Gideon  was  the  only  one  who  never  forgot 
that  they  were  to  make  observations  and  write  a  book.  He 
came  of  a  more  hard-working  race  than  the  others  did. 
Often  the  others  merely  fished,  boated,  bathed,  and  walked, 
and  forgot  the  object  of  their  tour.  But  Gideon,  though  he, 
too,  did  these  things,  did  them,  so  to  speak,  notebook  in 
hand.  He  was  out  to  find  and  analyse  Potterism,  so  much 
of  it  as  lay  hid  in  the  rocky  Cornish  coves  and  the  grave 
Cornish  people.  Katherine  Varick  was  the  only  member 
of  the  party  who  knew  that  he  was  also  seeking  and  finding 
it  in  the  hidden  souls  of  his  fellow-seekers. 


POTTERISM  15 


They  would  meet  in  the  evening  with  the  various  contri- 
butions to  the  subject  which  they  had  gathered  during  the 
day.  The  Urban  District  Council,  said  Johnny,  wanted 
to  pull  down  the  village  street  and  build  an  esplanade  to 
attract  visitors;  all  the  villagers  seemed  pleased.  That  was 
Potterism,  the  welcoming  of  ugliness  and  prosperity;  the 
antithesis  of  the  artist's  spirit,  which  loved  beauty  for  what 
it  was,  and  did  not  want  to  exploit  it. 

Their  landlady,  said  Juke,  on  Sunday,  had  looked  coldly 
on  him  when  he  went  out  with  his  fishing  rod  in  the 
morning.  This  would  not  have  been  Potterism,  but  merely 
a  respectable  bigotry,  had  the  lady  had  genuine  conscientious 
scruples  as  to  this  use  of  Sunday  morning  by  the  clergy, 
but  Juke  had  ascertained  tactfully  that  she  had  no  con- 
scientious scruples  about  anything  at  all.  So  it  was  merely 
propriety  and  cant,  in  brief,  Potterism.  Later,  he  had  landed 
at  a  village  down  the  coast  and  been  to  church. 

"That  church,"  he  said,  "is  the  most  unpleasant  piece 
of  Potterism  I  have  seen  for  some  time.  Perpendicular, 
but  restored  fifty  years  ago,  according  to  the  taste  of  the 
period.  Vile  windows;  painted  deal  pews;  incredible  bray- 
ing of  bad  chants  out  of  tune;  a  sermon  from  a  pie-faced 
fellow  about  going  to  church.  Why  should  they  go  to 
church?  He  didn't  tell  them;  he  just  said  if  they  didn't, 
some  being  he  called  God  would  be  angry  with  them. 
What  did  he  mean  by  God?  I'm  hanged  if  he'd  ever 
thought  it  out.  Some  being,  apparently,  like  a  sublimated 
Potterite,  who  rejoices  in  bad  singing,  bad  art,  bad  praying, 
and  bad  preaching,  and  sits  aloft  to  deal  out  rewards  to 
those  who  practise  these  and  punishments  to  those  who 
don't.  The  Potter  God  will  save  you  if  you  please  him; 
that  means  he'll  save  your  body  from  danger  and  not  let 


16  POTTERISM 

you  starve.  Potterism  had  no  notion  of  a  God  who  doesn't 
care  a  twopenny  damn  whether  you  starve  or  not,  but  does 
care  whether  you're  following  the  truth  as  you  see  it. 
In  fact,  Potterism  has  no  room  for  Christianity;  it  prefers 
the  God  of  the  Old  Testament.  Of  course,  with  their 
abominable  cheek,  the  Potterites  have  taken  Christianity  and 
watered  it  down  to  suit  themselves,  till  they've  produced  a 
form  of  Potterism  which  they  call  by  its  name;  but  they 
wouldn't  know  the  real  thing  if  they  saw  it.  ...  The 
Pharisees  were  Potterities.  .  .  ." 

The  others  listened  to  Juke  on  religious  Potterism  toler- 
antly. None  of  them  (with  the  doubtful  exception  of 
Johnny,  who  had  not  entirely  made  up  his  mind)  believed 
in  religion;  they  were  quite  prepared  to  agree  that  most  of 
its  current  forms  were  soaked  in  Potterism,  but  they  could 
not  be  expected  to  care,  as  Juke  did. 

Gideon  said  he  had  heard  a  dreadful  band  on  the  beach,, 
and  heard  a  dreadful  fellow  proclaiming  the  Precious  Blood. 
That  was  Potterism,  because  it  was  an  appeal  to  sentiment 
over  the  head,  or  under  the  head,  of  reason.  Neither  the 
speaker  nor  any  one  else  probably  had  the  least  idea  what 
he  was  talking  about  or  what  he  meant. 

"He  had  the  kind  of  face  which  is  always  turned  away 
from  facts,"  Gideon  said.  "Facts  are  too  difficult,  too  com- 
plicated for  him.  Hard,  jolly  facts,  with  clear  sharp  edges 
that  you  can't  slur  and  talk  away.  Potterism  has  no  use  for 
them.  It  appeals  over  their  heads  to  prejudice  and  senti- 
ment. .  .  .  It's  the  very  opposite  to  the  scientific  temper. 
No  good  scientist  could  conceivably  be  a  Potterite,  because 
he's  concerned  with  truth,  and  the  kind  of  truth,  too,  that 
it's  difficult  to  arrive  at.  Potterism  is  all  for  short  and  easy 
cuts  and  showy  results.  Science  has  to  work  its  way  step 
by  step,  and  then  hasn't  much  to  show  for  it.  It  isn't  greedy. 
Potterism  plays  a  game  of  grab  all  the  time — snatches  at 


POTTERISM  17 

success  in  a  hurry.  .  .  .  It's  greedy,"  repeated  Gideon, 
thinking  it  out,  watching  Jane's  firm  little  sun-browned  hand 
with  its  short  square  fingers  rooting  in  the  sand  for  shells. 

Jane  had  visited  the  stationer,  who  kept  a  circulating 
library,  and  seen  holiday  visitors  selecting  books  to  read. 
They  had  nearly  all  chosen  the  most  Potterish  they  could 
see,  and  asked  for  some  more  Potterish  still,  leaving  Conrad 
and  Hardy  despised  on  the  shelves.  But  these  people  were 
not  Cornish,  but  Saxon  visitors. 

And  Katherine  had  seen  the  local  paper,  but  it  had  been 
much  less  Potterish  than  most  of  the  London  papers,  which 
confirmed  them  in  their  theory  about  Celts. 

Thus  they  talked  and  discussed  and  played,  and  wrote 
their  book  in  patches,  and  travelled  from  place  to  place, 
and  thought  that  they  found  things  out.  And  Gideon,  be- 
cause he  was  the  cleverest,  found  out  the  most;  and  Kath- 
erine, because  she  was  the  next  cleverest,  saw  all  that 
Gideon  found  out;  and  Juke,  because  he  was  religious,  was 
for  ever  getting  on  to  Potterism  its  cure,  before  they  had 
analysed  the  disease;  and  the  Potters  enjoyed  life  in  their 
usual  serene  way,  and  found  it  very  entertaining  to  be  Pot- 
ters inquiring  into  Potterism.  The  others  were  scrup- 
ulously fair  in  not  attributing  to  them,  because  they  hap- 
pened to  be  Potters  by  birth,  more  Potterism  than  they 
actually  possessed.  A  certain  amount,  said  Juke,  is  part 
of  the  make-up  of  very  nearly  every  human  being;  it  has 
to  be  fought  down,  like  the  notorious  ape  and  tiger.  But 
he  thought  that  Gideon  and  Katherine  Varick  had  less  of  it 
than  any  one  else  he  knew;  the  mediocre  was  repellent  to 
them;  cant  and  sentiment  made  them  sick;  they  made  a 
fetish  of  hard  truth,  and  so  much  despised  most  of  their 
neighbours  that  they  would  not  experience  the  temptation 
to  grab  at  popularity.  In  fact,  they  would  dislike  it  if  it 
came. 


i8  POTTERISM 


Socialist  Cecily  came  out  while  they  were  at  Lyme  Regis. 
Mrs.  Potter  sent  the  twins  a  copy.  In  their  detached  way, 
the  twins  read  it,  and  gave  it  to  the  others  to  look  at. 

"Very  typical  stuff,"  Gideon  summed  it  up,  after  a  glance. 
"It  will  no  doubt  have  an  excellent  sale.  ...  It  must  be 
interesting  for  you  to  watch  it  being  turned  out.  I  wish 
you  would  ask  me  to  stay  with  you  some  time.  Yours 
must  be  an  even  more  instructive  household  than  mine." 

Gideon  was  a  Russian  Jew  on  his  father's  side,  and  a 
Harrovian.  He  had  no  decency  and  no  manners.  He  made 
Juke,  who  was  an  Englishman  and  an  Etonian,  and  had 
more  of  both,  uncomfortable  sometimes.  For,  after  all,  the 
rudiments  of  family  loyalty  might  as  well  be  kept,  among 
the  general  destruction  which  he,  more  sanguinely  than 
Gideon,  hoped  for. 

But  the  twins  did  not  bother.  Jane  said,  in  her  equable 
way,  "You'll  be  bored  to  death ;  angry,  too ;  but  come  if  you 
like.  .  .  .  We've  a  sister,  more  Potterish  than  the  parents. 
She'll  hate  you." 

Gideon  said,  "I  expect  so,"  and  they  left  his  prospective 
visit  at  that,  with  Jane  chuckling  quietly  at  her  private 
vision  of  Gideon  and  Clare  in  juxtaposition. 


But  Socialist  Cecily  did  not  have  a  good  sale  after  all. 
It  was  guillotined,  with  many  of  its  betters,  by  the  European 
war,  which  began  while  the  Anti-Potters  were  at  Swanage, 
a  place  replete  with  Potterism.  Potterism,  however,  as  a 
subject  for  investigation,  had  by  this  time  given  place  to 
international  diplomacy,  that  still  more  intriguing  study. 
The  Anti-Potters  abused  every  government  concerned,  and 


POTTERISM  19 

Gideon  said,  on  August  1st,  "We  shall  be  fools  if  we  don't 
come  in." 

Juke  was  still  dubious.  He  was  a  good  radical,  and  good 
radicals  were  dubious  on  this  point  until  the  invasion  of 
Belgium. 

"To  throw  back  the  world  a  hundred  years.  .  .  ." 

Gideon  shrugged  his  shoulders.  He  belonged  to  no  poli- 
tical party,  and  had  the  shrewd  far-seeing  eyes  of  his 
father's  race. 

"It's  going  to  be  thrown  back  anyhow.  Germany  will 
see  to  that.  And  if  we  keep  out  of  it,  Germany  will  grab 
Europe.  We've  got  to  come  in,  if  we  can  get  a  decent 
pretext." 

The  decent  pretext  came  in  due  course,  and  Gideon  said, 
"So  that's  that." 

He  added  to  the  Potters,  "For  once  I  am  in  agreement 
with  your  father's  press.  We  should  be  lunatics  to  stand 
out  of  this  damnable  mess." 

Juke  also  was  now,  painful  to  him  though  it  was  to  be 
so,  in  agreement  with  the  Potter  press.  To  him  the  war  had 
become  a  crusade,  a  fight  for  decency  against  savagery. 

"It's  that,"  said  Gideon.  "But  that's  not  all.  This 
isn't  a  show  any  country  can  afford  to  stand  out  of.  It's 
Germany  against  Europe,  and  if  Europe  doesn't  look  sharp, 
Germany's  going  to  win.  Germany.  Nearly  as  bad  as 
Russia,  .  .  .  One  would  have  to  emigrate  to  another 
hemisphere.  .  .  .  No,  we've  got  to  win  this  racket.  .  .  . 
But,  oh  Lord,  what  a  mess!"  He  fell  to  biting  his  nails, 
savage  and  silent. 

Jane  thought  all  the  time,  beneath  her  other  thoughts 
about  it,  "To  have  a  war,  just  when  life  was  beginning  and 
going  to  be  such  fun." 

Beneath  her  public  thoughts  about  it,  she  felt  this  deep 
private  disgust  gnawing  always,  as  of  one  defrauded. 


CHAPTER  III 


OPPORTUNITY 


THEY  did  not  know  then  about  people  in  general  going 
to  the  war.     They  thought  it  was  just  for  the  army 
and  navy,  not  for  ordinary  people.    That  idea  came  a  little 
later,  after  the  Anti-Potter  party  had  broken  up  and  gone 
home. 

The  young  men  began  to  enlist  and  get  commissions.  It 
was  done;  it  was  the  correct  idea.  Johnny  Potter,  who 
belonged  to  an  O.T.C.,  got  a  commission  early. 

Jane  said  within  herself,  "Johnny  can  go  and  I  can't." 
She  knew  she  was  badly,  incredibly  left.  Johnny  was  in 
the  movement,  doing  the  thing  that  mattered.  Further, 
Johnny  might  ultimately  be  killed  in  doing  it;  her  Johnny. 
Everything  else  shrank  and  was  little.  What  were  books? 
What  was  anything?  Jane  wanted  to  fight  in  the  war. 
The  war  was  damnable,  but  it  was  worse  to  be  out  of  it. 
One  was  such  an  utter  outsider.  It  wasn't  fair.  She  could 
fight  as  well  as  Johnny  could.  Jane  went  about  white  and 
sullen,  with  her  world  tumbling  into  bits  about  her. 

Mr.  Potter  said  in  the  press,  and  Mrs.  Potter  in  the 
home,  "The  people  of  England  have  a  great  opportunity 
before  them.  We  must  all  try  to  rise  to  it" — as  if  the 
people  of  England  were  fishes  and  the  opportunity  a  fly. 

Opportunity,  thought  Jane.  Where  is  it?  I  see  none. 
It  was  precisely  opportunity  which  the  war  had  put  an 
end  to. 

20 


POTTERISM  21 

"The  women  of  England  must  now  prove  that  they  are 
worthy  of  their  men,"  said  the  Potter  press. 

"I  dare  say,"  thought  Jane.  Knitting  socks  and  packing 
stores  and  learning  first  aid.  Who  wanted  to  do  things 
like  that,  when  their  brothers  had  a  chance  to  go  and 
fight  in  France?  Men  wouldn't  stand  it,  if  it  was  the 
other  way  round.  Why  should  women  always  get  the 
dull  jobs?  It  was  because  they  bore  them  cheerfully; 
because  they  didn't  really,  for  the  most  part,  mind,  Jane 
decided,  watching  the  attitude  of  her  mother  and  Clare. 
The  twins  profoundly  selfish,  but  loving  adventure  and 
placidly  untroubled  by  nerves  or  the  prospect  of  physical 
danger,  saw  no  hardship  in  active  service.  (This  was 
before  the  first  winter  and  the  development  of  trench 
warfare,  and  people  pictured  to  themselves  skirmishes  in  the 
open,  exposed  to  missiles,  but  at  least  keeping  warm). 


Every  one  one  knew  was  going.  Johnny  said  to  Jane, 
"War  is  beastly,  but  one's  got  to  be  in  it."  He  took  that 
line,  as  so  many  others  did.  "Juke's  going,"  he  said.  "As 
a  combatant,  I  mean,  not  a  padre.  He  thinks  the  war 
could  have  been  prevented  with  a  little  intelligence;  so  it 
could,  I  dare  say;  but  as  there  wasn't  a  little  intelligence 
and  it  wasn't  prevented,  he's  going  in.  He  says  it  will  be 
useful  experience  for  him — help  him  in  his  profession;  he 
doesn't  believe  in  parsons  standing  outside  things  and  only 
doing  soft  jobs.  I  agree  with  him.  Every  one  ought  to  go." 

"Every  one  can't  go,"  said  Jane  morosely. 

But  to  Johnny  every  one  meant  all  young  men,  and  he 
took  no  heed. 

Gideon  went.  It  might  be,  he  said  to  Juke,  be  a  cap- 
italists' war  or  any  one  else's;  the  important  thing  was  not 


22  FOTTERISM 

whose  war  it  was  but  who  was  going  to  win  it. 

He  added,  "Great  Britain  is,  on  this  occasion,  on  the 
right  side.  There's  no  manner  of  doubt  about  it.  But 
even  if  she  wasn't,  it's  important  for  all  her  inhabitants 
that  she  should  be  on  the  winning  side.  .  .  .  Oh,  she  will 
be,  no  doubt,  we've  the  advantage  in  numbers  and  wealth, 
if  not  in  military  organisation  or  talent.  ...  If  only  the 
Potterites  wouldn't  jabber  so.  It's  a  unique  opportunity 
for  them,  and  they're  taking  it.  What  makes  me  angriest 
is  the  reasons  they  vamp  up  why  we're  fighting.  For  the 
sake  of  democracy,  they  say.  Democracy  be  hanged.  It's 
a  rotten  system,  anyhow,  and  how  this  war  is  going  to  do 
anything  for  it  I  don't  know  how.  If  I  thought  it  was, 
I  wouldn't  join.  But  there's  no  fear.  And  other  people 
say  we're  fighting  'so  that  our  children  won't  have  to.' 
Rot  again.  Every  war  makes  other  wars  more  likely. 
Besides,  why  shouldn't  our  children  fight,  if  they  want  to? 
However,  I've  no  ambition  to  have  children,  so  I'm  no 
judge  of  the  feelings  of  actual  or  prospective  parents.  .  .  . 
But,  anyhow,  why  can't  people  say  simply  that  the  reason 
why  we're  fighting  is  partly  to  uphold  decent  international 
principles,  and  mainly  to  win  the  war — to  be  a  conquering 
nation,  not  a  conquered  one,  and  to  save  ourselves  from 
having  an  ill-conditioned  people  like  the  Germans  strutting 
all  over  us.  It's  a  very  laudable  object,  and  needs  no 
camouflage.  Sheer  Potterism,  all  this  cant  and  posturing. 
I'd  rather  say,  like  the  Dally  Mail,  that  we're  fighting  to 
capture  the  Hun's  trade;  that's  a  lie,  but  at  least  it  isn't 
cant." 

"Let  them  talk,"  said  Juke  lazily.  "Let  them  jabber 
and  cant.  What  does  it  matter?  We're  in  this  thing  up 
to  the  neck,  and  every  one's  got  to  relieve  themselves  in 
their  own  way.  As  long  as  we  get  the  job  done  somehow,  a 
little  nonsense-talk  more  or  less  won't  make  much  difference 


POTTERISM  23 

to  this  mighty  Empire,  which  has  always  indulged  in  plenty. 
It's  the  rash  coming  out,  good  for  the  system." 

So,  each  individual  in  his  own  way,  the  nation  entered 
into  the  worst  period  of  time  of  which  Europe  has  so  far 
had  experience,  and  on  which  I  do  not  propose  to  dwell  in 
these  pages  except  in  its  aspect  of  a  source  of  profit  to  those 
who  sought  profit;  its  more  cheerful  aspect,  in  fact. 


Mrs.  Potter  put  away  the  writing  of  fiction,  as  unsuitable 
in  these  dark  days.  (It  may  be  remembered  that  there 
was  a  period  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  when  it  was 
erroneously  supposed  that  fiction  would  not  sell  until  peace 
returned.)  Mrs.  Potter,  like  many  other  writers,  took  up 
Y.M.C.A.  canteen  work,  and  went  for  a  time  to  France. 
There  she  wrote  Out  There,  an  account  of  the  work  of 
herself  and  colleagues  in  Rouen,  full  of  the  inimitable  wit 
and  indomitable  courage  of  soldiers,  the  untiring  activities 
of  canteen  workers,  and  the  affectionate  good-fellowship 
which  existed  between  these  two  classes.  The  world  was 
thus  shown  that  Leila  Yorke  was  no  mere  flaneuse  of  letters, 
but  an  Englishwoman  who  rose  to  her  country's  call  and 
was  worthy  of  her  men-folk. 

Clare  became  a  V.A.D.,  and  went  up  to  town  every 
day  to  work  at  an  officers'  hospital.  It  was  a  hospital 
maintained  partly  by  Mr.  Potter,  and  she  got  on  very  well 
there.  She  made  many  pleasant  friends,  and  hoped  to  get 
out  to  France  later. 

Frank  tried  for  a  chaplaincy. 

"It  isn't  a  bit  that  he  wants  excitement,  or  change  of  air, 
or  a  free  trip  to  France,  or  to  feel  grand,  like  some  of 
them  do,"  explained  Mrs.  Frank.  "Only,  what's  the  good 
of  keeping  a  man  like  him  slaving  away  in  a  rotten  parish 


24  POTTERISM 

like  ours,  when  they  want  good  men  out  there?  I  tell 
Frank  all  he's  got  to  do  to  get  round  the  C.G.  is  to  grow 
a  moustache  and  learn  up  the  correct  answers  to  a  few 
questions — like  'What  would  you  do  if  you  had  to  attend 
a  dying  soldier?'  Answer — 'Offer  to  write  home  for 
him.'  A  lot  of  parsons  don't  know  that,  and  go  telling  the 
C.G.  they'd  give  him  communion,  or  hear  his  confession  or 
something,  and  that  knocks  them  out  first  round.  Frank 
knows  better.  There  are  no  flies  on  old  Frank.  All  the 
same,  pater,  you  might  do  a  little  private  wire-pulling  for 
him,  if  it  comes  in  handy." 

But,  unfortunately,  owing  to  a  recent  though  quite 
temporary  coldness  between  the  Chaplain-General  and  the 
Potter  press,  Mr.  Potter's  wire-pulling  was  ineffectual,  The 
Chaplain-General  did  not  entertain  Frank's  offer  favourably, 
and  regretted  that  his  appointment  as  chaplain  to  His 
Majesty's  forces  was  at  present  impracticable.  So  Frank 
went  on  in  Pimlico,  and  was  cynical  and  bitter  about  those 
clergymen  who  succeeded  in  passing  the  C.G.'s  tests. 

"Why  don't  you  join  up  as  a  combatant?"  Johnny  asked 
him,  seeing  his  discontent.  "Some  parsons  do." 

"The  bishops  have  forbidden  it,"  said  Frank. 

"Oh,  well,  I  suppose  so.     Does  it  matter  particularly?" 

"My  dear  Johnny,  there  is  discipline  in  the  Church  as 
well  as  in  the  army,  you  know.  You  might  as  well  ask 
would  it  matter  if  you  were  to  disobey  your  superior 
officers." 

"Well,  you  see,  I'd  have  something  happen  to  me  if  I  did. 
Parsons  don't.  You'd  only  be  reprimanded,  I  suppose,  and 
get  into  a  berth  all  right  when  you  came  back — if  you  did 
come  back." 

"That's  got  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  Church  would 
never  hold  together  if  her  officers  were  to  break  the  rules 


POTTERISM  25 

whenever  they  felt  like  it.  That  friend  of  yours,  Juke, 
hasn't  a  leg  to  stand  on ;  he's  merely  in  revolt." 

"Oh,  old  Juke  always  is,  of  course.  Against  every  kind 
of  authority,  but  particularly  against  bishops.  He's  always 
got  his  knife  into  them,  and  I  dare  say  he's  glad  of  the 
chance  of  flouting  them.  High  Church  parsons  are,  aren't 
they?  I  expect  if  you  were  a  bit  higher  you'd  flout  them 
too.  And  if  you  were  a  bit  lower,  the  C.G.'d  take  you  as 
a  padre.  You're  just  the  wrong  height,  old  thing,  that's 
what's  the  matter." 

Thus  Johnny,  now  a  stocky  lieutenant  on  leave  from 
France,  diagnosed  his  brother's  case.  Wrongly,  because 
High  Church  parsons  weren't  actually  enlisting  any  more 
than  any  other  kind;  they  did  not,  mostly,  believe  it  to  be 
their  business;  quite  sincerely  and  honestly  they  thought  it 
would  be  wrong  for  them,  though  right  for  laymen,  to 
undertake  combatant  service. 

Anyhow,  as  to  height,  Frank  knew  himself  to  be  of  a 
height  acceptable  in  benefices,  and  that  was  something. 
Besides,  it  was  his  own  height. 

"Sorry  I  can't  change  to  oblige  you,  old  man,"  he  said. 
"Or  desert  my  post  and  pretend  to  be  a  layman.  I  am  a 
man  under  authority,  like  you.  I  wish  the  powers  that  be 
would  send  me  out  there,  but  it's  for  them  to  judge,  and 
if  they  think  I  should  be  of  less  use  as  a  padre  than  all  the 
Toms,  Dicks,  and  Harrys  they  are  sending,  it's  not  for  me 
to  protest.  They  may  be  right.  I  may  be  absolutely  useless 
as  a  chaplain.  On  the  other  hand,  I  may  not.  They 
apparently  don't  intend  to  give  themselves  a  chance  of 
finding  out.  Very  well.  It's  nothing  to  me,  either  way." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right  then,"  Johnny  said. 


26  POTTERISM 


No  one  could  say  that  the  Potter  press  did  not  rise  to  the 
great  opportunity.  The  press  seldom  fails  to  do  this.  The 
Potter  press  surpassed  itself;  it  nearly  surpassed  its  great 
rival  presses.  With  energy  and  wholeheartedness  it  cheered, 
comforted,  and  stimulated  the  people.  It  never  failed  to 
say  how  well  the  Allies  were  getting  on,  how  much  ammu- 
nition they  had,  how  many  men,  what  indomitable  tenacity 
and  cheerful  spirits  enlivened  the  trenches.  The  correspond- 
ents it  employed  wrote  home  rejoicing;  its  leading  articles 
were  noble  hymns  of  praise.  In  times  of  darkness  and 
travail  one  cannot  but  be  glad  of  such  a  press  as  this.  So 
glad  were  the  Government  of  it  that  Mr.  Potter  became,  at 
the  end  of  1916,  Lord  Pinkerton,  and  his  press  the  Pinkerton 
press.  Of  course  that  was  not  the  only  reward  he  obtained 
for  his  services;  he  figured  every  new  year  in  the  honours' 
list,  and  collected  in  succession  most  of  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet  after  his  name.  With  it  all,  he  remained  the  same 
alert,  bird-like,  inconspicuous  person,  with  the  same  unswerv- 
ing belief  in  his  own  methods  and  his  own  destinies,  a 
belief  which  never  passed  from  self-confidence  to  self-im- 
portance. Unless  you  were  so  determined  a  hater  of  Pot- 
terism  as  to  be  blindly  prejudiced,  you  could  not  help  liking 
Lord  Pinkerton. 


Jane,  sulking  because  she  could  not  fight,  thought  for  a 
short  time  that  she  would  nurse,  and  get  abroad  that  way. 
Then  it  became  obvious  that  too  many  fools  were  scrambling 
to  get  sent  abroad,  and  anyhow,  that,  if  Clare  was  nursing, 
it  must  be  a  mug's  game,  and  that  there  must  be  a  better 
field  for  her  own  energies  elsewhere.  With  so  many  men 
going,  there  would  be  empty  places  to  fill.  .  .  .  That 


POTTERISM  2f 

thought  came,  perhaps,  as  soon  to  Jane  as  to  any  one  in  the 
country. 

Her  father's  lady  secretary  went  nursing,  and  Lord 
Pinkerton,  well  aware  of  his  younger  daughter's  clear- 
headed competence,  offered  Jane  the  job,  at  a  larger  salary. 

"Your  shorthand  would  soon  come  back  if  you  took  it 
up,"  he  told  her.  For  he  had  had  all  his  children  taught 
shorthand  at  a  )-oung  age;  in  his  view  it  was  one  of  the 
essentials  of  education;  he  had  learned  it  himself  at  the  age 
of  thirteen,  and  insulted  his  superior  young  gentlemen  pri- 
vate secretaries  by  asking  them  if  they  knew  it.  Jane  and 
Johnny,  who  had  been  in  early  youth  very  proficient  at  it, 
had,  since  they  were  old  enough  to  know  it  was  a  sort  of  low 
commercial  cunning,  the  accomplishment  of  the  slave,  hidden 
their  knowledge  away  like  a  vice.  When  concealed  from 
observation  and  pressed  for  time,  they  had  furtively  taken 
down  lecture  notes  in  it  at  Oxford,  but  always  with  a 
consciousness  of  guilt. 

Jane  had  declined  the  secretaryship.  She  did  not  mean 
to  be  that  sort  of  low  secretary  that  takes  down  letters,  she 
did  not  mean  to  work  for  the  Potter  press,  and  she  thought 
it  would  be  needlessly  dull  to  work  for  her  father.  She 
said,  "No,  thank  you,  dad.  I'm  thinking  of  the  Civil 
Service." 

That  was  early  in  1915,  when  women  had  only  just 
begun  to  think  of,  or  be  thought  of,  by  the  Civil  Service. 
Jane  did  not  think  of  it  with  enthusiasm ;  she  wanted  to  be 
a  journalist  and  to  write;  but  it  would  do  for  the  time,  and 
would  probably  be  amusing.  So,  owing  to  the  helpful  influ- 
ence of  Mr.  Potter,  and  a  good  degree,  Jane  obtained  a 
quite  good  post  at  the  Admiralty,  which  she  had  to  swear 
never  to  mention,  and  went  into  rooms  in  a  square  off  Fleet 
Street  with  Katherine  Varick,  who  had  a  research  fellowship 


28  POTTERISM 

in  chemistry  and  worked  in  a  laboratory  in  Farringdon 
Street. 

The  Admiralty  was  all  right.  It  was  interesting  as  such 
jobs  go,  and  Jane,  who  was  clear-headed,  did  it  well.  She 
got  to  know  a  few  men  and  women  who,  she  considered, 
were  worth  knowing,  though,  in  technical  departments  such 
as  the  Admiralty,  the  men  were  apt  to  be  superior  to  the 
women ;  the  women  Jane  met  there  were  mostly  non-Uni- 
versity lower-grade  clerks,  and  so  forth ;  nice,  cheery  young 
things,  but  rather  stupid,  who  thought  it  jolly  for  Jane 
to  be  connected  with  Leila  Yorke  and  the  Potter  press,  and 
were  scarcely  worth  undeceiving.  And  naval  officers,  though 
charming,  were  apt  to  be  a  little  elementary,  Jane  dis- 
covered, in  their  general  outlook. 

However,  the  job  was  all  right;  not  a  bad  plum  to  have 
picked  out  of  the  hash,  on  the  whole.  And  the  life  was  all 
right.  The  rooms  were  jolly  (only  the  new  geyser  exploded 
too  often),  and  Katherine  Varick,  though  she  made  stinks 
in  the  evenings,  not  bad  to  live  with,  and  money  not  too 
scarce,  as  money  goes,  and  theatres  and  dinners  frequent. 
Doing  one's  bit,  putting  one's  shoulder  to  the  wheel,  proving 
i  the  mettle  of  the  women  of  England,  certainly  had  its 
agreeable  side. 


In  intervals  of  office  work  and  social  life,  Jane  was 
writing  odds  and  ends,  and  planning  the  books  she  meant 
to  write  after  the  war.  She  hadn't  settled  her  line  yet. 
Articles  on  social  and  industrial  questions  for  the  papers, 
she  hoped,  for  one  thing;  she  had  plenty  to  say  on  this 
head.  Short  stories.  Poems.  Then,  perhaps,  a  novel.  .  .  . 
About  the  nature  of  the  novel  Jane  was  undecided,  except 
that  it  would  be  more  unlike  the  novels  of  Leila  Yorke 
than  any  novels  had  ever  been  before.  Perhaps  a  sarcastic, 


POTTERISM  29 

rather  cynical  novel  about  human  nature,  of  which  Jane  did 
not  think  much.  Perhaps  a  serious  novel,  dealing  with 
social  or  political  conditions.  Perhaps  an  impressionist 
novel,  like  Dorothy  Richardson's.  Only  they  were  getting 
common ;  they  were  too  easy.  One  could  hardly  help  writing 
like  that,  unless  one  tried  not  to,  if  one  had  lately  read 
any  of  them. 

Most  contemporary  novels  Jane  found  very  bad,  not 
worth  writing.  Those  solemn  and  childish  novels  about 
public  schools,  for  instance,  written  by  young  men.  Jane 
wondered  what  a  novel  about  Roedean  or  Wycombe  Abbey 
would  be  like.  The  queer  thing  was  that  some  young 
woman  didn't  write  one;  it  need  be  no  duller  than  the 
young  men's.  Rather  duller,  perhaps,  because  schoolgirls 
were  more  childish  than  schoolboys,  the  problems  of  their 
upbringing  less  portentous.  But  there  were  many  of  the 
same  ingredients — the  exaltation  of  games,  hero-worship, 
rows,  the  clever  new  literary  mistress  who  made  all  the 
stick-in-the-mud  other  mistresses  angry.  .  .  .  Only  were  the 
other  mistresses  at  girls'  schools  stick-in-the-mud?  No, 
Jane  thought  not;  quite  a  decent  modern  set,  on  the  whole, 
for  people  of  their  age.  Better  than  schoolmasters,  they 
must  be. 

How  dull  it  all  was!  Some  women  ought  to  do  it,  but 
not  Jane. 

Jane  was  inclined,  in  her  present  phase,  to  think  the 
Russians  and  the  French  the  only  novelists.  They  had 
manner  and  method.  But  they  were  both  too  limited  in 
their  field,  too  much  concerned  with  sexual  relations,  that 
most  tedious  of  topics  (in  literature,  not  life),  the  very 
thought  of  which  made  one  yawn.  Queer  thing,  how 
novelists  couldn't  leave  it  alone.  It  was,  surely,  like  eating 
and  drinking,  a  natural  element  in  life,  which  few  avoid; 
but  the  most  exciting,  jolly,  interesting,  entertaining  things 


30  POTTERISM 

were  apart  from  it.  Not  that  Jane  was  not  quite  willing 
to  accept  with  approval,  as  part  of  the  game  of  living,  such 
episodes  in  this  field  as  came  her  way;  but  she  could  not 
regard  them  as  important.  As  to  marriage,  it  was  merely 
dowdy.  Domesticity;  babies;  servants;  the  companionship  of 
one  man.  The  sort  of  thing  Clare  would  go  in  for,  no 
doubt.  Not  for  Jane,  before  whom  the  world  lay,  an  oyster 
asking  to  be  opened. 

She  saw  herself  a  journalist;  a  reporter,  perhaps:  (only 
the  stories  women  were  sent  out  on  were  usually  dull), 
a  special  correspondent,  a  free-lance  contributor,  a  leader 
writer,  eventually  an  editor.  .  .  .  Then  she  could  initate 
a  policy,  say  what  she  thought,  stand  up  against  the  Potter 
press. 

Or  one  might  be  a  public  speaker,  and  get  into  Parlia- 
ment later  on,  when  women  were  admitted.  One  despised 
Parliament,  but  it  might  be  fun. 

Not  a  permanent  Civil  Servant;  one  could  not  work 
for  this  ludicrous  government  more  than  temporarily,  to  tide 
over  the  Great  Interruption. 


So  Jane  looked  with  calm,  weighing,  critical  eyes  at  life 
and  its  chances,  and  saw  that  they  were  not  bad,  for  such  as 
her.  Unless,  of  course,  the  Allies  were  beaten.  .  .  .  This 
contingency  seemed  often  possible,  even  probable.  Jane's 
faith  in  the  ultimate  winning  power  of  numbers  and 
wealth  was  at  times  shaken,  not  by  the  blunders  of  govern- 
ments or  the  defection  of  valuable  allies,  but  by  the 
unwavering  optimism  of  her  parent's  press. 
.  "But,"  said  Katherine  Varick,  "it's  usually  right,  your 
papa's  press.  That's  the  queer  thing  about  it.  It  sounds 
always  wildly  wrong,  like  an  absurd  fairy  story,  and  all  the 


POTTERISM  31 

sane,  intelligent  people  laugh  at  it,  and  then  it  turns  out  to 
have  been  right.  Look  at  the  way  it  used  to  say  that 
Germany  was  planning  war;  it  was  mostly  the  stupid 
people  who  believed  it,  and  the  intelligent  people  who  didn't ; 
but  all  the  time  Germany  was." 

"Partly  because  people  like  daddy  kept  saying  so  and 
planning  to  get  in  first." 

"Not  much.  Germany  was  really  planning:  we  were 
only  talking.  ...  I  believe  in  the  Pinkerton  press,  and  the 
other  absurd  presses.  They  have  the  unthinking  Tightness 
of  the  fool.  Of  course  they  have.  Because  the  happenings 
of  the  world  are  caused  by  people — the  mass  of  people—- 
and the  Pinkerton  press  knows  them  and  represents  them. 
Intellectual  people  are  always  thinking  above  the  heads  of 
the  people  who  make  movements,  so  they're  nearly  always 
out.  The  Pinkerton  press  is  the  people,  so  it  gets  there 
(  every  time.  Potterism  will  outlive  all  the  reformers  and 
idealists.  If  Potterism  says  we're  going  to  have  a  war,  we 
have  it;  if  it  says  we're  going  to  win  a  war,  we  shall  win 
it.  'If  you  see  it  in  John  Bull,  it  is  so.' " 

It  was  not  often  that  Katherine  spoke  of  Potterism,  but 
when  she  did  it  was  with  conviction. 


8 

Gideon  was  home,  wounded.  He  nad  nearly  died,  but  not 
quite.  He  had  lost  his  right  foot,  and  would  have  another 
when  the  time  was  ripe.  He  was  discharged,  and  became, 
later  on,  assistant  editor  of  a  new  weekly  paper  that  was 
started. 

He  dined  with  Jane  and  Katherine  at  their  flat,  soon 
after  he  could  get  about.  He  was  leaner  than  ever,  white 
and  gaunt,  and  often  ill-tempered  from  pain.  Johnny  was 


32  POTTERISM 

there  too,  a  major  on  leave,  stuck  over  with  coloured  ril>- 
bons.     Jane  called  him  a  pot-hunter. 

They  laughed  and  talked  and  joked  and  dined.  When 
Gideon  and  Johnny  had  gone,  and  Katherine  and  Jane  were 
left  smoking  last  cigarettes  and  finishing  the  chocolates, 
Jane  said,  lazily,  and  without  chagrin,  "How  Arthur  does 
hate  us  all,  in  these  days." 

Katherine  said,  "True.  He  finds  us  profiteers." 
"So  we  are,"  said  Jane.  "Not  you,  but  most  of  us.  I 
am.  .  .  .  You're  one  of  the  few  people  he  respects.  Some 
day,  perhaps,  you'll  have  to  marry  him,  and  cure  him  of 
biting  his  nails  when  he's  cross.  .  .  .  He  thinks  Johnny's 
a  profiteer,  too,  because  of  the  ribbons  and  things.  Johnny 
is.  It's  in  the  blood.  We're  grabbers.  Can't  be  helped. 
.  .  .  Do  you  want  the  last  walnut  chocolate,  old  thing? 
If  so,  you're  too  late." 


CHAPTER  IV 

JANE  AND  CLAKI 

1 

IN  the  autumn  of  1918,  Jane,  when  she  went  home  for 
week-ends,  frequently  found  one  Oliver  Hobart  there. 
Oliver  Hobart  was  the  new  editor  of  Lord  Pinkerton's 
chief  daily  paper,  and  had  been  exempted  from  military 
service  as  newspaper  staff.  He  was  a  Canadian;  he  had 
been  educated  at  McGill  University,  admired  Lord  Pinker- 
ton,  his  press,  and  the  British  Empire,  and  despised  (in 
this  order)  the  Quebec  French,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
newspapers  which  did  not  succeed,  Little  Englanders,  and 
Lord  Landsdowne. 

"A  really  beautiful  face,"  said  Lady  Pinkerton,  and  so 
he  had.  Jane  had  seen  it,  from  time  to  time  during  the 
last  year,  when  she  had  called  to  see  her  father  in  the 
office  of  the  Daily  Haste. 

One  hot  Saturday  afternoon  in  August,  1918,  she  found 
him  having  tea  with  her  family,  in  the  shadow  of  the 
biggest  elm.  Jane  looked  at  them  in  her  detached  way; 
Lord  Pinkerton,  neat  and  little,  his  white-spatted  feet 
crossed,  his  head  cocked  to  one  side,  like  an  intelligent 
sparrow's;  Lady  Pinkerton,  tall  and  fair  and  powdered,  in 
a  lilac  silk  dress,  her  large  white  hands  all  over  rings, 
amethysts  swinging  from  her  ears;  Clare  (who  had  given 
up  nursing  owing  to  the  strain,  and  was  having  a  rest), 
slim  and  rather  graceful,  a  little  flushed  from  the  heat, 

33 


34  POTTERISM 

lying  in  a  deck  chair  and  swinging  a  buckled  shoe,  saying 
something  ordinary  and  Clare-ish;  Hobart  sitting  by  her, 
a  pale,  Gibson  young  man,  with  his  smooth  fair  hair 
brushed  back,  and  lavendar  socks  with  purple  clocks,  and 
a  clear,  firm  jaw.  He  was  listening  to  Clare  with  a  smile. 
You  could  not  help  liking  him;  his  was  the  sort  of  beauty 
which,  when  found  in  either  man  or  woman,  makes  so 
strong  an  appeal  to  the  senses  of  the  sex  other  than  that 
of  the  possessor  that  reason  is  all  but  swamped.  Besides, 
as  Lord  Pinkerton  said,  Hobart  was  a  dear,  nice  fellow. 

He  was  at  Sherards  for  that  week-end  because  Lord 
Pinkerton  was  just  making  him  editor  of  the  Daily  Haste. 
Before  that,  he  had  been  on  the  staff,  a  departmental  editor, 
and  a  leader-writer.  ("Mr.  Hobart  will  go  far,"  said  Lady 
Pinkerton  sometimes,  when  she  read  the  leaders.  "I  hope, 
on  the  contrary,"  said  Lord  Pinkerton,  "that  he  will  stay 
where  he  is.  It  is  precisely  the  right  spot.  That  was  the 
trouble  with  Carruthers ;  he  went  too  far.  So  he  had  to  go 
altogether."  He  gave  his  thin  little  snigger. ) 

Anyhow,  here  was  Hobart,  this  Saturday  afternoon, 
having  tea  in  the  garden.  Jane  saw  him  through  the 
mellow  golden  sweetness  of  shadow  and  light. 

"Here  is  Jane,"  said  Lady  Pinkerton. 

Jane's  dark  hair  tell  in  damp  waves  over  her  hot,  square, 
white  forehead;  her  blue  cotton  dress  was  crumpled  and 
limp.  How  neat,  how  cool,  was  this  Hobart!  Could  a 
man  have  a  Gibson  face  like  that,  like  a  young  man  on 
the  cover  of  an  illustrated  magazine,  and  not  be  a  ninny? 
Did  he  take  the  Pinkerton  press  seriously,  or  did  he  laugh? 
Both,  probably,  like  most  journalists.  He  wouldn't  laugh 
to  Lord  Pinkerton,  or  to  Lady  Pinkerton,  or  to  Clare.  But 
he  might  laugh  to  Jane,  when  she  showed  him  he  might. 
Jane,  eating  jam  sandwiches,  looking  like  a  chubby  school 
child,  with  her  round  face  and  wide  eyes  and  bobbed  hair 


POTTERISM  35 

and  cotton  frock,  watched  the  beautiful  young  man  with 
her  solemn  unwinking  stare  that  disconcerted  self-conscious 
people,  while  Lady  Pinkerton  talked  to  him  about  some 
recent  fiction. 

On  Sunday,  people  came  over  to  lunch,  and  they  played 
tennis.  Clare  and  Hobart  played  together.  "Oh,  well  up, 
partner,"  Jane  could  hear  him  say,  all  the  time.  Or  else 
it  was  "Well  tried.  Too  bad."  Clare's  happy  eyes  shone, 
brown  and  clear  in  her  flushed  face,  like  agates.  Rather  a 
pretty  thing,  Clare,  if  dull. 

The  Franks  were  there,  too. 

"Old  Clare's  having  a  good  time,"  said  Mrs.  Frank  to 
Jane,  during  a  set  they  weren't  playing  in.  Her  merry  dark 
eyes  snapped.  Instinctively,  she  usually  said  something  to 
disparage  the  good  time  of  other  girls.  This  time  it  was, 
"That  Hobart  thinks  he's  doing  himself  a  good  turn  with 
pater,  making  up  to  Clare  like  that.  Oh,  he's  a  cunning 
fellow.  Isn't  he  handsome,  Jane?  I  hate  these  handsome 
fellows,  they  always  know  it  so  well.  Nothing  in  his  face 
really,  if  you  come  to  look,  is  there?  I'd  rather  have  old 
Frank's,  even  if  he  does  look  like  a  half-starved  bird." 


Jane  was  calmly  rude  to  Hobart,  showing  him  she 
despised  his  paper,  and  him  for  editing  it.  She  let  him  see 
it  all,  and  he  was  imperturbably,  courteously  amused,  and, 
in  turn,  showed  that  he  despised  her  for  belonging  to  the 
1917  Club. 

"You  don't,"  he  said,  turning  to  Clare. 

"Gracious,  no.  I  don't  belong  to  a  club  at  all.  I  go 
with  mother  to  the  Writers'  sometimes,  though;  that's  not 
bad  fun.  Mother  often  speaks  there,  you  know,  and  I  go 


36  POTTERISM 

and  hear.    Jolly  good  she  is,  too.    She  read  a  ripping  paper 
last  week  on  the  'Modern  Heroine.'  " 

Jane's  considering  eyes  weighed  Hobart,  whose  courtesy 
was  still  impregnable.  How  far  was  he  the  complete  Pot- 
terite,  identified  with  his  absurd  press?  Did  he  even 
appreciate  Leila  Yorke?  She  would  have  liked  to  know. 
But,  it  seemed,  she  was  not  to  know  from  him. 


The  Armistice  came. 

Then  the  thing  was  to  get  to  Paris  somehow.  Jane  had, 
unusually,  not  played  her  cards  well.  She  had  neglected 
the  prospect  of  peace,  which,  after  all,  must  come.  When 
she  had,  in  May,  at  last  taken  thought  for  the  morrow, 
and  applied  at  the  Foreign  Office  for  one  of  those  secret 
jobs  which  could  not  be  mentioned  because  they  prepared 
the  doers  to  play  their  parts  after  the  great  unmentionable 
event,  she  was  too  late.  The  Foreign  Office  said  they 
could  not  take  over  people  from  other  government  depart- 
ments. 

So,  when  the  unmentionable  took  place,  Jane  was  badly 
left.  The  Foreign  Office  Library  Department  people,  many 
of  them  Jane's  contemporaries  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
were  hurried  across  the  Channel  into  Life,  for  which  they 
had  been  prepared  by  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  Dangers  of 
Paris.  There  also  went  the  confidential  secretaries,  the 
clerks  and  shorthand  typists,  in  their  hundreds;  degreeless, 
brainless  beings,  but  wise  in  their  generation. 

"I  wish  I  was  a  shorthand  typist,"  Jane  grumbled,  brood- 
ing with  Katherine  over  their  fire. 

"Paris,"  Katherine  turned  over  the  delightful  word  con- 
sideringly, finding  it  wanting.  "The  last  place  in  the  world 
I  should  choose  to  be  in  just  now.  Fuss  and  foolishness- 


POTTERISM  37 

Greed  and  grabbing.  The  centre  of  the  lunacies  and  crimes 
of  the  next  six  months.  Politicians  assembled  together  .  .  . 
It's  infinitely  common  to  go  there.  All  the  vulgarest 
people  .  .  .  You'd  be  more  select  at  Southend  or  Black- 
pool." 

"History  Is  being  made  there,"  said  Jane,  quoting  from 
her  father's  press. 

"Thank  you;  I'd  rather  go  to  Birmingham  and  make 
something  clean  and  useful,  like  glass." 

But  Jane  wanted  to  make  history  in  Paris.  She  felt  out 
of  it,  left,  as  she  had  felt  when  other  people  went  to  the 
war  and  she  stayed  at  home. 

On  a  yellow,  foggy  day  just  before  Christmas,  Lord 
Pinkerton,  with  whom  Jane  was  lunching  at  his  club  (Lord 
Pinkerton  was  quite  good  to  lunch  with;  you  got  a  splendid 
feed  for  nothing),  said,  "I  shall  be  going  over  to  Paris 
next  month,  Babs."  (That  was  what  he  called  her.) 
"D'you  want  to  come?" 

"Well,  I  should  say  so.     Don't  rub  it  in,  dad." 

Lork  Pinkerton  looked  at  her,  with  his  whimsical,  affec- 
tionate paternity. 

"You  can  come  if  you  like,  Babs.  I  want  another  seo 
retary.  Must  have  one.  If  you'll  do  some  of  the  shorthand 
typing  and  filing,  you  can  come  along.  How  about  it?" 

Jane  thought  for  exactly  thirty  seconds,  weighing  the 
shorthand  typing  against  Paris  and  the  Majestic  and  Life. 
Life  had  it,  as  usual. 

"Right-o,  daddy.  I'll  come  along.  When  do  we  go 
over?" 

That  afternoon  Jane  gave  notice  to  her  department,  and 
in  the  middle  of  January  Lord  Pinkerton  and  his  bodyguard 
of  secretaries  and  assistants  went  to  Paris. 


38  POTTERISM 


That  was  Life.  Trousseaux,  concerts,  jazzing,  dinners, 
marble  bathrooms,  notorious  persons  as  thick  as  flies  in 
corridors  and  on  the  stairs,  dangers  of  Paris  surging  outside, 
disappointed  journalists  besieging  proud  politicians  in  vain, 
the  Council  of  Four  sitting  in  perfect  harmony  behind 
thick  curtains,  Signor  Orlando  refusing  to  play,  but  rinding 
they  went  on  playing  without  him  and  coming  back.  Jugo- 
Slavs  walking  about  under  the  aegis  of  Mr.  Wickham 
Steed,  smiling  sweetly  and  triumphantly  at  the  Italians, 
going  to  the  theatre  and  coming  out  because  the  jokes 
seemed  to  them  dubious,  Sir  George  Riddell  and  Mr.  G.  H. 
Mair  desperately  controlling  the  press,  Lord  Pinkerton 
flying  to  and  fro,  across  the  Channel  and  back  again,  while 
his  bodyguard  remained  in  Paris.  There  also  flew  to  and 
fro  Oliver  Hobart,  the  editor  of  the  Daily  Haste.  He  would 
drop  in  on  Jane,  sitting  in  her  father's  outer  office,  card- 
indexing,  opening  and  entering  letters,  and  what  not. 

"Good-morning,  Miss  Potter.  Lord  Pinkerton  in  the 
office  this  morning?" 

"He's  in  the  building  somewhere.  Talking  to  Sir 
George,  I  think.  .  .  .  Did  you  fly  this  time?" 

Whether  he  had  flown  or  whether  he  had  come  by  train 
and  boat,  he  always  looked  the  same,  calm,  unruffled,  tidy, 
the  exquisite  nut. 

"Pretty  busy?"  he  would  say,  with  his  half-indulgent 
smile  at  the  round-faced,  lazy,  drawling  child  who  was  so 
self-possessed,  sometimes  so  impudent,  often  sarcastic,  always 
so  amusingly  different  from  her  slim,  pretty,  and  girlish 
elder  sister. 

"Pretty  well,"  Jane  would  reply.  "I  don't  overwork, 
though." 


POTTERISM  39 

"I  don't  believe  you  do,"  Hobart  said,  looking  down  at 
her  amusedly. 

"Father  does,  though.  That's  why  he's  thin  and  I'm  fat. 
What's  the  use?  It  makes  no  difference." 

"You're  getting  reconciled,  then,"  said  Hobart,  "to  work- 
ing for  the  Pinkerton  press?" 

Jane  secretly  approved  his  discernment.  But  all  she 
said  was,  with  her  cool  lack  of  stress,  "It's  not  so  bad." 

Usually  when  Hobart  was  in  Paris  he  would  dine  with 
them. 

5 

Lady  Pinkerton  and  Clare  came  over  for  a  week.  They 
stayed  in  rooms,  in  the  Avenue  de  1'Opera.  They  visited 
shops,  theatres,  and  friends,  and  Lady  Pinkerton  began 
a  novel  about  Paris  life.  Clare  had  been  run  down  and 
low-spirited,  and  the  doctor  had  suggested  a  change  of 
scene.  Hobart  was  in  Paris  for  the  week-end ;  he  dined  with 
the  Pinkertons  and  went  to  the  theatre  with  them.  But 
on  Monday  he  had  to  go  back  to  London. 

On  Monday  morning  Clare  came  to  her  father's  office, 
and  found  Jane  taking  down  letters  from  Lord  Pinkerton's 
private  secretary,  a  young  man  who  had  been  exempted 
from  military  service  through  the  war  on  the  grounds  that 
he  was  Lord  Pinkerton's  right  hand. 

Clare  sat  and  waited,  and  looked  round  the  room  for 
violets,  while  the  young  gentleman  dictated.  His  letters  were 
better  worded  than  Lord  Pinkerton's,  because  he  was  better 
at  the  English  language.  Lord  Pinkerton  would  fall  into 
commercialisms;  he  would  say  "re"  and  "same"  and  "to 
hand,"  and  even  sometimes  "your  favour  of  the  16th."  His 
secretary  knew  that  that  was  not  the  way  in  which  a  great 
newspaper  chief  should  write.  Himself  he  dictated  quite 
a  good  letter,  but  annoyed  Jane  by  putting  in  the  punctua- 


40  POTTERISM 

tion,  as  if  she  was  an  imbecile.  Thus  he  was  saying  now, 
pacing  up  and  down  the  room,  plunged  in  thought: — 

"Lord  Pinkerton  is  not  comma  however  comma  averse  to" 
(Jane  wrote  "from")  "entertaining  your  suggestions  comma 
and  will  be  glad  if  you  can  make  it  convenient  to  call  to- 
morrow bracket  Tuesday  close  the  bracket  afternoon  comma 
between  three  and  five  stop." 

He  could  not  help  it ;  one  must  make  allowances  for  those 
who  dictate.  But  Clare  saw  Jane's  teeth  release  her  clenched 
tongue  to  permit  it  to  form  silently  the  word  "Ninny." 

The  private  secretary  retired  into  his  chief's  inner  sanctum. 

"Morning,  old  thing,"  said  Jane  to  Clare,  uncovering  her 
typewriter  without  haste  and  yawning,  because  she  had  been 
up  late  last  night. 

"Morning,"  Clare  yawned  too.  She  was  warm  and  pretty, 
in  a  spring  costume,  with  a  big  bunch  of  sweet  violets  at 
her  waist.  She  touched  these. 

"Aren't  they  top-hole.  Mr.  Hobart  left  them  this  morn- 
ing before  he  went.  Jolly  decent  of  him  to  think  of  it, 
getting  off  in  a  hurry  like  he  was.  .  .  .  He's  not  a  bad 
young  thing,  do  you  think." 

"Not  so  bad."  Jane  extracted  carbons  from  a  drawer 
and  fitted  them  to  her  paper.  Then  she  stretched,  like 
a  cat. 

"Oh,  I'm  sleepy.  .  .  .  Don't  feel  like  work  to-day.  For 
two  pins  I'd  cut  it  and  go  out  with  you  and  mother.  The 
sun's  shining,  isn't  it?" 

Clare  stood  by  the  window,  and  swung  the  blind-tassel. 
They  had  five  days  of  Paris  before  them,  and  Paris  suddenly 
seemed  empty.  .  .  . 

"We're  going  tc  have  a  topping  week,"  she  said. 

Then  Lord  Pinkerton  came  in. 

"Hobart  gone?"  he  asked  Jane. 

'Tes." 


POTTERISM  41 

"Majendie  in  my  room?" 
"Yes." 

Lord  Pinkerton  patted  Clare's  shoulder  as  he  passed  her. 

"Send  Miss  Hope  in  to  me  when  she  comes,  Babs,"  he 
said,  and  disappeared  through  the  farther  door. 

Jane  began  to  type.  It  bored  her,  but  she  was  fairly 
proficient  at  it.  Her  childhood's  training  stood  her  in  good 
stead. 

"Mr.  Hobart  must  have  run  his  train  pretty  fine,  if  he 
came  in  here  on  the  way,"  said  Clare,  twirling  the  blind- 
tassel. 

"He  wasn't  going  till  twelve,"  said  Jane,  typing. 

"O,  I  see.  I  thought  it  was  ten.  ...  I  suppose  he 
found  he  couldn't  get  that  one,  and  had  to  see  dad  first. 
What  a  bore  for  him.  .  .  .  Well,  I'm  off  to  meet  mother. 
See  you  this  evening,  I  suppose." 

Clare  went  out  into  Paris  and  the  March  sunshine, 
whistling  softly. 

That  night  she  lay  awake  in  her  big  bed,  as  she  had  lain 
last  night.  She  lay  tense  and  still,  and  stared  at  the  great 
gas  globe  that  looked  in  through  the  open  window  from 
the  street.  Her  brain  formed  phrases  and  pictures. 

"That  day  on  the  river.  .  .  .  Those  Sundays.  .  .  . 
That  lunch  at  the  Florence.  .  .  .  'What  attractive  shoes 
those  are.'  .  .  .  My  gray  suedes,  I  had.  ...  'I  love 
these  Sunday  afternoons.'  .  .  .  'You're  one  of  the  few  girls 
who  are  jolly  to  watch  when  they  run.'  .  .  .  'Just  you  and 
me;  wouldn't  it  be  rather  nice?  I  should  like  it,  any- 
how.' .  .  .  He  kept  looking.  .  .  .  Whenever  I  looked 
up  he  was  looking.  ...  his  eyes  awfully  blue,  with  black 
edges  to  them.  .  .  .  Peggy  said  he  blacked  them.  .  .  . 
Peggy  was  jealous  because  he  never  looked  at  her.  .  .  .  I'm 
jealous  now  because  .  .  .  No,  I'm  not,  why  should  I  be? 
He  doesn't  like  fat  girls,  he  said.  .  .  .  He  watches 


42  POTTERISM 

her.  .  .  .  He  looks  at  her  when  there's  a  joke.  .  .  .  He 
bought  me  violets,  but  he  went  to  see  her.  .  .  .  He  keeps 
coming  over  to  Paris.  ...  I  never  see  him.  ...  I  don't 
get  a  chance.  .  .  .  He  cared,  he  did  care.  .  .  .  He's  for- 
getting, because  I  don't  get  a  chance.  .  .  .  She's  stealing 
him.  .  .  .  She  was  always  a  selfish  little  cad,  grabbing,  and 
not  really  caring.  She  can't  care  as  I  do,  she's  not  made 
that  way.  .  .  .  She  cares  for  nothing  but  herself.  .  .  . 
She  gets  everything,  just  by  sitting  still  and  not  bothering. 
.  .  .  College  makes  girls  awful.  .  .  .  Peggy  says  men 
don't  like  them,  but  they  do.  They  seem  not  to  care  about 
men,  but  they  care  just  the  same.  They  don't  bother,  but 
they  get  what  they  want.  .  .  .  Pig.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  can't 
bear  it.  Why  should  I  ?  .  .  .1  love  him,  I  love  him,  I  love 
him.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  must  go  to  sleep.  I  shall  go  mad  if  I 
have  another  night  like  last  night." 

Clare  got  out  of  bed,  stumbled  to  the  washstand,  splashed 
her  burning  head  and  face  with  cold  water,  then  lay 
shivering. 

Ilt  may  or  may  not  be  true  that  the  power  of  love  is  to 
be  found  in  the  human  being  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  power 
to  think.     Probably  it  is  not;  these  generalisations  seldom/ 
are.     Anyhow,  Clare,  like  many  others,  could  not 
stand,  but  loved. 


Lady  Pinkerton  said  to  her  lord  next  day,  "How  much 
longer  will  the  peace  take  being  made,  Percy?" 

"My  dear,  I  can't  tell  you.  Even  I  don't  know  every- 
thing. There  are  many  little  difficulties  which  have  to 
be  smoothed  down.  Allies  stand  in  a  curious  and  not 
altogether  easy  relation  to  one  another." 

"Italy,  of  course  ..." 

"And  not  only  Italy,  dearest." 


POTTERISM  43 

"Of  course,  China  is  being  very  tiresome." 

"Ah,  if  it  were  only  China!" 

Lady   Pinkerton   sighed. 

"Well,  it's  all  very  sad.  I  do  hope,  Percy,  that  after 
this  war  we  English  will  never  again  forget  that  we  hate 
all  foreigners." 

"I  hope  not,  my  dear.     I  am  afraid  before  the  war  I 
was  largely  responsible  for  encouraging  these  fraternisations 
and  discriminations.     A  mistake,  no  doubt.     But  one  which 
did  credit  to  our  hearts.    One  must  always  remember  about/ 
a  great  people  like  ourselves  that  the  heart  leads." 

"Thank  God  for  that,"  said  Leila  Yorke,  illogically.  Then 
Lady  Pinkerton  added,  "But  this  peace  takes  too  long.  .  .  . 
I  suppose  a  lasting  and  righteous  peace  must.  .  .  .  Shall 
you  nave  to  be  running  to  and  fro  like  this  till  it's  signed, 
dear?" 

"To  and  fro,  yes.     I  must  keep  an  office  going  here." 

"Jane  is  enjoying  it,"  said  Lady  Pinkerton.  "She  sees 
a  lot  of  Oliver  Hobart,  I  suppose,  doesn't  she?" 

"He's  in  and  out,  of  course.  He  and  the  child  get  on 
better  than  they  used  to." 

"There  is  no  doubt  about  that,"  said  Lady  Pinkerton.  "If 
you  don't  know  it,  Percy,  I  had  better  tell  you.  Men  never 
see  these  things.  He  is  falling  in  love  with  her." 

Lord  Pinkerton  fidgeted  about  the  room. 

"Rilly.  Rilly.  Very  amusing.  You  used  to  think  it  was 
Clare,  dearest." 

He  cocked  his  head  at  her  accusingly,  convicting  her  of 
being  a  woman  of  fancies. 

"Oh,  you  dear  novelists!"  he  said,  and  shook  a  finger 
at  her. 

"Nonsense,  Percy.  It  is  perfectly  obvious.  He  used  to 
be  attracted  by  Clare,  and  now  he  is  attracted  by  Jane. 


44  POTTERISM 

Very  strange:  such  different  types.  But  life  is  strange,  and 
particularly  love.  Oh,  I  don't  say  it's  love  yet,  but  it's  a 
strong  attraction,  and  may  easily  lead  to  it.  The  question 
is,  are  we  to  let  it  go  on,  or  shall  we  head  him  back  to  Clare, 
who  has  begun  to  care,  I  am  afraid,  poor  child?" 

"Certainly  head  him  back  if  you  like  and  can,  darling. 
I  don't  suppose  Babs  wants  him,  anyhow." 

"That  is  just  it.  If  Jane  did,  I  shouldn't  interfere. 
Her  happiness  is  as  dear  to  me  as  Clare's,  naturally.  But 
Jane  is  not  susceptible;  she  has  a  colder  temperament;  and 
she  is  often  quite  rude  to  Oliver  Hobart.  Look  how  different 
their  views  about  everything  are.  He  and  Clare  agree 
much  better." 

"Very  well,  mother.  You're  the  doctor.  I'll  do  my 
best  not  to  throw  them  together  when  next  Hobart  couies 
over.  But  we  must  leave  the  children  to  settle  their  affairs 
for  themselves.  If  he  really  wants  fat  little  Babs  we  can't 
stop  him  trying  for  her." 

"Life  is  difficult,"  Lady  Pinkerton  sighed.  "My  poor 
little  Clare  is  looking  like  a  wilted  flower." 

"Poor  little  girl.  M'm  yes.  Poor  little  girl.  Well, 
well,  we'll  see  what  can  be  done  .  .  .  I'll  see  if  I  can  take 
Janet  home  for  a  bit,  perhaps — get  her  out  of  the  way. 
She's  very  useful  to  me  here,  though.  There  are  no  flies 
on  Jane.  She's  got  the  Potter  wits  all  right." 

But  Lady  Pinkerton  loved  better  Clare,  who  was  like 
a  flower,  Clare,  whom  she  had  created,  Clare,  who  might 
have  come — if  any  girl  could  have  come — out  of  a  Leila 
Yorke  novel. 

"I  shall  say  a  word  to  Jane,"  Lady  Pinkerton  decided, 
"Just  to  sound  her." 

But,  after  all,  it  was  Jane  who  said  the  word.  She  said 
it  that  evening,  in  her  cool,  leisurely  way. 


POTTERISM  45 

"Oliver  Hobart  asked  me  to  marry  him  yesterday  morn- 
ing.    I  wrote  to-day  to  tell  him  I  would." 


I  append  now  the  personal   records  of  various  people 
concerned  in  this  story.     It  seems  the  best  way. 


PART  II 
TOLD  BY  GIDEON 

CHAPTER  I 

SPINNING 


NOTHING  that  I  or  anybody  else  did  in  the  spring 
and  summer  of  1919  was  of  the  slightest  importance. 
It  ought  to  have  been  a  time  for  great  enterprises  and 
beginnings;  but  it  emphatically  wasn't.  It  was  a  queer, 
inconclusive,  lazy,  muddled,  reckless,  unsatisfactory,  rather 
ludicrous  time.  It  seemed  as  if  the  world  was  suffering 
from  vertigo.  I  have  seen  men  who  have  been  badly  hit 
spinning  round  and  round  madly,  like  dancing  dervishes. 
That  was,  I  think,  what  we  were  all  doing  for  some  time 
after  the  war — spinning  round  and  round,  silly  and  dazed, 
without  purpose  or  power.  At  least  the  only  purpose  in 
evidence  was  the  fierce  quest  of  enjoyment,  and  the  only 
power  that  of  successfully  shirking  facts.  We  were  like 
bankrupts,  who  cannot  summon  energy  to  begin  life  and 
work  again  in  earnest.  And  we  were  represented  by  the 
most  comic  parliament  who  ever  sat  in  Westminster,  upon 
which  it  would  be  too  painful  here  to  expatiate. 

One    didn't    know   what    had    happened,    or   what   was 
happening,  or  what  was  gcing  to  happen.    We  had  won  the 

46 


POTTERISM  47 

war.  But  what  was  that  going  to  mean?  What  were 
we  going  to  get  out  of  it?  What  did  we  want  the  new 
world  to  be?  What  did  we  want  this  country  to  be?  Every 
one  shouted  a  different  answer.  The  December  elections 
seemed  to  give  one  answer.  But  I  don't  think  it  was  a 
true  one.  The  public  didn't  really  want  the  England  of 
John  Bull  and  Pemberton  Billing;  they  showed  that  later. 

A  good  many  people,  of  course,  wanted  and  want  revolu- 
tion and  the  International.  I  don't,  and  never  did.  I 
hate  red-flaggery,  and  all  other  flaggery.  The  sentimentalism 
of  Bob  Smillie  is  as  bad  as  the  sentimentalism  of  the  Pink- 
erton  press;  as  untruthful,  as  greedy,  as  muddle-headed.' 
Smillie's  lot  are  out  to  get,  and  the  Potterites  out  to  keep. 
The  under-dog  is  more  excusable  in  its  aims,  but  its  methods 
aren't  any  more  attractive.  Juke  can  swallow  it  all.  But 
Jukie  has  let  his  naturally  clear  head  get  muddled  by  a 
mediaeval  form  of  religion.  Religion  is  like  love;  it  plays 
the  devil  with  clear  thinking.  Juke  pretended  not  to  hate 
even  Smillie's  interview  with  the  coal  dukes.  He  applauded 
when  bmillie  quoted  texts  at  them.  Though  I  know,  of 
course,  that  that  sort  or  thing  is  mainly  a  pose  on  Juke's 
part,  because  it  amuses  him.  Besides,  one  of  the  dukes  was 
a  cousin  of  his,  who  bored  him,  so  of  course  he  was  pleased. 

But  those  texts  damned  Smillie  for  ever  in  my  eyes.  He 
had  those  poor  imbeciles  at  his  mercy — and  he  gave  his 
whole  case  away  by  quoting  irrelevant  remarks  from  ancient 
Hebrew  writers.  I  wish  I  had  had  his  chance  for  ten 
minutes;  I  would  have  taken  it.  But  the  Labour  people 
are  always  giving  themselves  away  with  both  hands  to  the 
enemy.  I  suppose  facts  have  hit  them  too  hard,  and  so  they  \ 
shrink  away  from  them — pad  them  with  sentiment,  like 
uneducated  women  in  villas.  They  all  need — so  do  the 
women — a  legal  training,  to  make  their  minds  hard  and 


48  POTTERISM 

clear  and  sharp.  So  do  journalists.  Nearly  the  whole  press 
is  the  same,  dealing  in  emotions  and  stunts,  unable  to  face 
facts  squarely,  in  a  calm  spirit. 

It  seemed  to  some  of  us  that  spring  that  there  was  a 
chance  for  unsentimental  journalism  in  a  new  paper,  that 
should  be  unhampered  by  tradition.  That  was  why  the 
Weekly  Fact  (unofficially  called  the  Anti-Potterite)  was 
started.  All  the  other  papers  had  traditions;  their  past 
principles  dictated  their  future  policy.  The  Fact  (except 
that  it  was  up  against  Potterism)  was  untrammelled;  it 
was  to  judge  of  each  issue  as  it  turned  up,  on  its  own  merits, 
in  the  light  of  fact.  That,  of  course,  was  in  itself  the 
very  essence  of  anti-Potterism,  which  was  incapable  of  judg- 
ing or  considering  anything  whatever,  and  whose  only  light 
was  a  feeble  emotionalism.  The  light  of  fact  was  to  Pot- 
terites  but  a  worse  darkness. 

The  Fact  wasn't  to  be  labelled  Liberal  or  Labour  or  Tory 
or  Democratic  or  anti-Democratic  or  anything  at  all.  All 
these  things  were  to  vary  with  the  immediate  occasions.  I 
know  it  sounds  like  Lloyd  George,  but  there  were  at  least 
two  very  important  differences  between  the  Fact  and  the 
Prime  Minister.  One  was  that  the  Fact  employed  experts 
who  always  made  a  very  thorough  and  scientific  investiga- 
tion of  every  subject  it  dealt  with  before  it  took  up  a  line; 
it  cared  for  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  The 
other  was  that  the  Fact  took  in  nearly  every  case  the  less 
popular  side,  not,  of  course,  because  it  was  less  popular  (for 
to  do  that  would  have  been  one  of  the  general  principles 
of  which  we  tried  to  steer  clear),  but  it  so  happened  that 
we  came  to  the  conclusion  nearly  always  that  the  majority 
were  wrong.  The  fact  is  that  majorities  nearly  always 
are.  The  heart  of  the  people  may  be  usually  in  the  right 
place  (though,  personally,  I  doubt  this,  for  the  heart  of 


POTTERISM  49 

I  man  is  corrupt)  but  their  head  can,  in  most  cases,  be  relied 
on  to  be  in  the  wrong  one.  This  is  an  important  thing  for 
statesmen  to  remember;  forgetfulness  of  it  has  often  led  to 
disaster;  ignorance  of  it  has  created  Potterism  as  an  official 
faith. 

Anyhow,  the  Fact  (again  unlike  the  Prime  Minister) 
could  afford  to  ignore  the  charges  of  flightiness  and  irre- 
sponsibility which,  of  course,  were  flung  at  it.  It  could 
afford  to  ignore  them  because  of  the  good  and  solid  excellence 
of  its  contents,  and  the  reputations  of  many  of  its  con- 
tributors. And  that,  of  course,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  it 
had  plenty  of  money  behind  it.  A  great  many  people  know 
who  backs  the  Fact,  but,  all  the  same,  I  cannot,  of  course, 
give  away  this  information  to  the  public.  I  will  only  say 
that  it  started  with  such  good  financial  backing  that  it  was 
able  to  afford  the  best  work,  able  even  to  afford  the  truth. 
Most  of  the  good  weeklies,  certainly,  speak  the  truth  as 
they  see  it;  they  are,  in  fact,  a  very  creditable  section  of 
our  press;  but  the  idea  of  the  Fact  was  to  be  absolutely  un- 
biased on  each  issue  that  turned  up  by  anything  it  had  eve* 
thought  before.  Of  course,  you  may  say  that  a  man  will 
be  likely,  when  a  case  comes  before  his  eyes,  to  come  to 
the  same  conclusion  about  it  that  he  came  to  about  a  similar 
case  not  long  before.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  sur- 
prising how  some  slight  difference  in  the  circumstances  of  a 
case  may,  if  a  man  keeps  an  open  mind,  alter  his  whole/* 
judgment  of  it.  The  Fact  was  a  scientific,  not  a  senti- 
•mental  paper.  If  our  investigations  led  us  into  autocracy, 
we  were  to  follow  them  there;  if  to  a  soviet  state,  still 
we  were  to  follow  them.  And  we  might  support  autocracy 
in  one  state  and  Soviets  in  another,  if  it  seemed  suitable. 
Again  this  sounds  like  some  of  our  more  notorious  politicians 
—Carson,  for  instance ;  but  the  likeness  is  superficial. 


50  POTTERISM 


We  began  in  March.  Peacock  and  I  were  the  editors. 
We  didn't,  and  don't,  always  agree.  Peacock,  for  instance, 
believes  in  democracy.  Peacock  also  accepts  poetry;  poetry 
about  the  war,  by  people  like  Johnny  Potter.  Every  one 
knows  that  school  of  poetry  by  heart  now;  of  course  it 
was  particularly  fashionable  immediately  after  the  war. 
Johnny  Potter  did  it  much  like  other  men.  Any  one  can 
do  it.  One  takes  some  dirty  horrible  incident  or  sight  of 
the  battle-front  and  describes  it  in  loathsome  detail,  and 
then,  by  way  of  contrast,  describes  some  fat  and  incredibly 
bloodthirsty  woman  or  middle-aged  clubman  at  home,  gloat- 
ing over  the  glorious  war.  I  always  thought  it  a  great 
bore,  and  sentimental  at  that.  But  it  was  the  thing  for 
a  time,  and  people  seemed  to  be  impressed  by  it,  and  Pea- 
cock, who  encouraged  young  men,  often  to  their  detri- 
ment, would  take  it  for  the  Fact,  though  that  sort  of  cheap 
and  popular  appeal  to  sentiment  was  the  last  thing  the 
Fact  was  out  for. 

Johnny  Potter,  like  other  people,  was  merely  exploiting 
his  experiences.  Johnny  would.  He's  a  nice  chap,  and  a 
cleverish  chap,  in  the  shrewd,  unimaginative  Potter  way — 
Jane's  way,  too — only  she's  a  shade  cleverer — but  chiefly 
he's  determined  to  get  there  somehow.  That's  Potter,  again. 
And  that's  where  Jane  and  Johnny  amuse  me.  They're 
up  against  what  we  agreed  to  call  Potterism — the  Potterismu 
that  is,  of  second-rate  sentimentalism  and  cheap  short-cuts' 
and  mediocrity;  they  stand  for  brain  and  clear  thinking  < 
against  muddle  and  cant;  but  they're  righting  it  with  Pot- 
terite  weapons — self-interest,  following  things  for  what  they 
bring  them  rather  than  for  the  things  in  themselves.  John 
would  never  write  the  particular  kind  of  stuff  he  does  for 
the  love  of  writing  it;  he'll  only  do  it  because  it's  the  stunt 


POTTERISM  51 

\  for  the  moment.  That's  why  he'll  never  be  more  than 
/cleverish  and  mediocre,  never  the  real  thing.  In  his  calm, 
(  unexcited  way,  he  worships  success,  and  he'll  get  it,  like  old 
'Pinkerton.  He's  never  even  met  any  of  the  bloodthirsty  non- 
combatants  he  writes  about;  he  just  takes  them  over  second- 
hand from  other  people.  And  it's  mostly  tosh.  I  know  it's 
entirely  against  popular  convention  to  say  so,  but  some  of  the 
most  bloodthirsty  militarists  I  used  to  meet  during  the  war 
were  among  the  fighting  men.  Or  rather,  not  for  the  most 
part  the  men,  but  the  officers.  Of  course,  there  were  plenty 
of  fire-eaters  at  home  too,  unfortunately,  but  it's  the  most 
absurd  perversion  of  facts  to  make  out  that  our  combatants 
were  all  war-haters  and  our  non-combatants  peace-haters. 
However,  that  wras  the  stunt  among  a  certain  section,  just  as 
it  was  the  stunt  among  another  section — the  Potter  press 
section — to  draw  a  picture  of  an  army  going  rejoicing  into 
\e  fight  for  right.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  men  like  Johnny 
Pottvr,  cool-headed  and  tough  and  cheerful  and  a  little 
insensitive,  and  immensely  interested  in  things  as  they  were, 
didn't  find  the  front  lines  the  consistent  hell  they  describe 
/  them  as  in  their  verse ;  they  got  a  certain  amount  of  interest 
and  fun  out  of  the  life,  loathsome  and  ludicrous  as  it  was, 
in  its  filthiness  and  tedium  and  discomfort.  Naturally.  It 
was  interesting.  I  often  found  it  so  myself,  though  I 
hated  it. 

What  one  specially  resented  was  the  way  the  rseo  who 
had  been  killed,  poor  devils,  were  exploited  by  the  mak*R» 
of  speeches  and  the  writers  of  articles.  First,  they'd  perhaps 
be  called  "the  fallen,"  instead  of  "the  killed"  (it's  a  queer 
thing  how  "fallen"  in  the  masculine  means  killed  in  the 
war,  and  in  the  feminine  given  over  to  a  particular  kind  of 
vice),  and  then  the  audience,  or  the  readers,  will  be  told 
that  they  died  for  democracy,  or  a  cleaner  world,  when 
very  likely  most  of  them  hated  the  first  and  never  gave 


52  POTTERISM 

an  hour's  thought  to  the  second.  I  could  imagine  their 
indignant  presences  in  the  Albert  Hall  at  Gray's  big  League 
of  Nations  meeting  in  May,  listening  to  dynes'  reasons 
why  they  died.  I  can  hear  dear  old  Peter  Clancy  on 
why  he  died.  "Democracy?  A  cleaner  world?  No. 
Why?  I  suppose  I  died  because  I  inadvertently  got  in  the 
way  of  some  flying  missile;  I  know  no  other  reason.  And 
I  suppose  I  was  there  to  get  in  its  way  because  it's  part 
of  belonging  to  a  nation  to  fight  its  battles  when  required — 
like  paying  its  taxes  or  keeping  its  laws.  Why  go  groping 
for  far-fetched  reasons?  /Who  wants  democracy,  any  old 
way?  And  the  world  was  good  enough  for  me  as  it  was, 
thank  you.  No,  of  course  it  isn't  clean,  and  never  will  be; 
but  no  war  is  going  to  make  it  cleaner  These  talkers  make 
1  me  sick.  ..." 

If  Clancy — the  thousands  of  Clancys — could  have  been 
there,  I  think  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  they  would  have 
been  saying.  Anyhow,  personally,  I  certainly  didn't  lose  my 
foot  for  democracy  or  for  a  cleaner  world.  I  lost  it  in 
helping  to  win  the  war — a  quite  necessary  thing  in  the  cir- 
cumstances. 

But  every  one  seemed,  during  and  after  the  war,  to  want 
to  prove  that  the  fighters  thought  in  the  particular  way  they 
thought  themselves;  they  seemed  to  think  it  immeasurably 

1  strengthened  their  case.  Heaven  only  knows  why,  when  the 
fighting  men  were  just  the  men  who  hadn't  time  or  leisure 
to  think  at  all.    They  were,  as  the  Potterites  put  it  so  truly, 
doing  the  job.    The  thinking,  such  as  it  was,  was  done  by 
the  people  who  sat  at  home — the  politicians,  the  clergy,  the 
'  writers,  the  women,  the  men  with  "A"  certificates  in  Gov- 
;  ernment  offices;  and  precious  poor  thinking  it  was,  too. 


POiTERISM  53 


We  all  settled  down  to  life  and  work  again,  as  best  we 
could.  Johnny  Potter  went  into  a  publisher's  office,  and 
also  got  odd  jobs  of  reveiwing  and  journalism,  besides 
writing  war  verse  and  poetry  of  passion  (of  which  confusing, 
if  attractive  subject,  he  really  knew  little).  Juke  was 
demobilised  early,  too,  commenced  clergyman  again,  got  a 
job  as  curate  in  a  central  London  parish,  and  lived  in 
rooms  in  a  slummy  street.  He  and  I  saw  a  good  deal  of 
each  other. 

One  day  in  March,  Juke  and  I  were  lunching  together 
at  the  1917  Club  when  Johnny  came  in  and  joined  us.  He 
looked  rather  queer,  and  amused  too.  He  didn't  tell  us 
anything  till  we  were  having  coffee.  Then  Juke  or  I 
said,  "How's  Jane  getting  on  in  Paris?  Not  bored  yet?" 

Johnny  said,  "I  should  say  not.  She's  been  and  gone 
and  done  it.  She's  got  engaged  to  Hobart.  I  heard  from 
the  mater  this  morning." 

I  don't  think  either  of  us  spoke  for  a  moment.  Then 
Juke  gave  a  long  whistle,  and  said,  "Good  Lord!" 

"Exactly,"  said  Johnny,  and  grinned. 

"It's  no  laughing  matter,"  said  Juke  blandly.  "Jane  is 
imperilling  her  immortal  soul.  She  is  yoking  together  with 
an  unbeliever;  she  is  forming  an  unholy  alliance  with 
mammon.  We  must  stop  it." 

"Stop  Jane,"  said  Johnny.  "You  might  as  well  try  and 
stop  a  young  tank." 

He  meditated  for  a  moment. 

"The  funny  thing  is,"  he  added,  "that  we  all  thought 
it  was  Clare  he  was  after." 

"Now  that,"  Juke  said  judicially,  "would  have  been  all 
right.  You  elder  sister  could  have  had  Hobart  and  the 
Daily  Haste  without  betraying  her  principles.  But  Jane — 


54  POTTERISM 

Jane,  the  anti-Potterite  ...   I  say,  why  is  she  doing  it?" 

Johnny  drew  a  letter  from  his  pocket  and  consulted  it. 

"The  mater  doesn't  say.  ...  I  suppose  the  usual  rea- 
sons. Why  do  people  do  it?  I  don't;  nor  do  you;  nor 
does  Gideon.  So  we  can't  explain.  ...  I  didn't  think 
Jane  would  do  it  either;  it  always  seemed  more  in  Clare's 
line,  somehow.  Jane  and  I  always  thought  Clare  would 
marry,  she's  the  sort.  Feminine  and  all  that,  you  know. 
Upon  my  word,  I  thought  Jane  was  too  much  of  a  sports- 
man to  go  tying  herself  up  with  husbands  and  babies  and 
servants  and  things.  What  the  devil  will  happen  to  all  she 
meant  to  do — writing,  public  speaking,  and  all  the  rest  of  it? 
I  suppose  a  girl  can  carry  on  to  a  certain  extent,  though, 
even  if  she  is  married,  can't  she?" 

"Jane  will,"  I  said.  "Jane  won't  give  up  anything  she 
wants  to  do  for  a  trifle  like  marriage."  I  was  sure  of 
that. 

"I  believe  you're  right,"  Johnny  agreed.  "But  it  will 
be  jolly  awkward  being  married  to  Hobart  and  writing  in 
the  anti-Potter  press. 

"She'll  write  for  the  Daily  Haste"  Juke  said.  "She'll 
make  Hobart  give  her  a  job  on  it.  Having  begun  to  go 
down  the  steep  descent,  she  won't  stop  till  she  gets  to  the 
bottom.  Jane's  thorough." 

But  that  was  precisely  what  I  didn't  think  Jane  was.    She 
is,  on  the  other  hand,  given  to  making  something  good  out/ 
of  as  many  worlds  as  she  can  simultaneously.     Martyrs  and  | 
Irishmen,  fanatics  and  Juke,  are  thorough;  not  Jane. 

We  couldn't  stay  gossiping  over  the  engagement  any 
longer,  so  we  left  it  at  that.  The  man  lunching  at  the 
next  table  might  have  concluded  that  Johnny's  sister  had 
got  engaged  to  a  scoundrel,  instead  of  to  the  talented,  prom- 
ising, and  highly  virtuous  young  editor  of  a  popular  daily 


POTTERISM  55 

paper.     Being  another  member  of  the  1917,  I  dare  say  he 
understood. 

But  no  one  had  tried  to  answer  Juke's  question,  "Why  is 
she  doing  it?"  Johnny  had  supposed  "for  the  usual  reasons." 
That  opens  a  probably  unanswerable  question.  What  the 
devil  are  the  usual  reasons? 


I  met  Lady  Pinkerton  and  her  elder  daughter  in  the 
muzzle  department  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores  the  next 
week.  That  was  one  of  the  annoying  aspects  of  the  muzzling 
order;  one  met  in  muzzle  shops  people  with  whom  neither 
temperament  nor  circumstances  would  otherwise  have  thrown 
one. 

I  have  a  particular  dislike  for  Lady  Pinkerton,  and  she 
for  me.  I  hate  those  cold,  shallow  eyes,  and  clothes  drenched 
in  scent,  and  basilisk  pink  faces  whitened  with  powder  which 
such  women  have  or  develop.  When  I  look  at  her  I  think  of 
ail  her  frightful  books,  and  the  frightful  serial  she  has 
even  now  running  in  the  Pink  Pictorial,  and  I  shudder  (un- 
obtrusively, I  hope),  and  look  away.  When  she  looks 
at  me,  she  thinks,  "dirty  Jew,"  and  she  shudders  (unob- 
trusively, too),  and  looks  over  my  head.  She  did  so  now,  no 
doubt,  as  she  bowed. 

"Dreadfully  tahsome,  this  muzzling  order,"  she  said, 
originally.  "We  have  two  Pekingese,  a  King  Charles,  and  a 
pug,  and  their  poor  little  faces  don't  fit  any  muzzle  that's 
made." 

I  answered  with  some  inanity  about  my  mother's  Poltal- 
loch,  and  we  talked  for  a  moment.  She  said  she  hoped  I 
was  quite  all  right  again,  and  I  suppose  I  said  I  was,  with 
my  leg  shooting  like  a  gathered  tooth  (it  was  pretty  bad 
all  that  spring). 


56  POTTERISM 

Suddenly  I  felt  her  wanting  badly  to  tell  me  the  news 
about  Jane.  She  wanted  to  tell  me  because  she  thought 
she  would  be  scoring  off  me,  knowing  that  what  she  would 
call  my  "influence"  over  Jane  had  always  been  used  against 
all  that  Hobart  stands  for.  I  felt  her  longing  to  throw 
me  the  triumphant  morsel  of  news — "Jane  has  deserted  you 
and  all  your  tiresome,  conceited,  disturbing  clique,  and  is 
going  to  marry  the  promising  young  editor  of  her  father's 
chief  paper."  But  something  restrained  her.  I  caught  the 
advance  and  retreat  of  her  intention,  and  connected  it  with 
her  daughter,  who  stood  by  her,  silent,  with  an  absurd 
Pekingese  in  her  arms. 

Anyhow,  Lady  Pinkerton  held  in  her  news,  and  I  left 
them.  I  dislike  Lady  Pinkerton,  as  I  have  said;  but  on 
this  occasion  I  disliked  her  a  little  less  than  usual,  for  that 
maternal  instinct  which  had  robbed  her  of  her  triumph. 


I  went  to  see  Katherine  Varick  that  evening.  I  often  do 
when  I  have  been  meeting  women  like  Lady  Pinkerton, 
jecause  there  is  a  danger  that  that  kind  of  woman,  so 
common  and  in  a  sense  so  typical,  may  get  to  bulk  too 
large  in  one's  view  of  women,  and  lead  one  into  the  sin  of 
generalisation.  So  many  women  are  such  very  dreadful 
"fools — men,  too,  for  that  matter,  but  more  women — that 
one  needs  to  keep  in  pretty  frequent  touch  with  those  who 
aren't,  with  the  women  whose  brains,  by  nature  and  training, 
grip  and  hold.  Of  these,  Katherine  Varick  has  as  fine  and 
keen  a  mind  and  as  good  a  head  as  any  I  know.  She 
isn't  touched  anywhere  with  Potterism;  she  has  the  scientific 
temperament.  Katherine  and  I  are  great  friends.  From 
the  first  she  did  a  good  deal  of  work  for  the  Fact — reviews 


POTTERISM  57 

of  scientific  books,  mostly.  I  went  to  see  her,  to  get  the 
taste  of  Lady  Pinkerton  out  of  my  mouth. 

I  found  her  doing  something  with  test-tubes  and  bottles 
— some  experiment  with  carbo-hydrates,  I  think  it  was.  I 
watched  her  till  she  was  through  with  it,  then  we  talked. 
That  is  the  way  one  puts  it,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Kath- 
erine  seldom  does  much  of  the  talking;  one  talks  to  her. 
She  listens,  and  puts  in  from  time  to  time  some  critical 
comment  that  often  extraordinarily  clears  up  any  subject 
one  is  talking  round.  She  contributes  as  much  as  any  one 
I  know  to  the  conversation,  but  in  such  condensed  tabloids 
that  it  doesn't  take  her  long.  Most  things  don't  seem  to 
her  to  be  worth  saying.  She'll  let  for  instance,  a  chatter- 
box like  Juke  say  a  hundred  words  to  her  one,  and  still  she'll 
get  most  said,  though  Jukie's  not  a  vapid  talker  either. 

"Jane,"  she  told  me,  "is  coming  back  next  week.  The 
marriage  is  to  be  at  the  end  of  April." 

"A  rapidity  worthy  of  the  Hustling  Press.  Jukie  will  be 
sorry.  He  hopes  yet  to  wrest  her  as  a  brand  from  the 
burning." 

Katherine  smiled  at  Juke's  characteristic  sanguineness. 

"Jukie  won't  do  that.  If  Jane  means  to  do  a  thing 
she  does  it.  Jane  knows  what  she  wants." 

"And  she  wants  Hobart?"  I  pondered  it,  turning  it  over, 
still  puzzled. 

"She  wants  Hobart,"  Katherine  agreed.  "And  all  that 
Hobart  will  let  her  in  to." 

"The  Daily  Haste?  The  society  of  the  Pinkerton 
journalists?" 

"And  of  a  number  of  other  people.  Some  of  them  fairly 
important  people,  you  know.  The  editor  of  the  Daily  Haste 
has  to  transact  business  with  a  good  many  notorious  per- 
sons, no  doubt  That  would  amuse  Jane.  She's  all  for  life. 
I  dare  say  the  wife  of  the  editor  of  the  Haste  has  a  pretty 


58  POTTERISM 

good  front  window  for  the  show.    Jane  likes  playing  about 
with  people,  as  you   like  playing  with   ideas,   and  I   with 
chemicals  .    .    .   Besides,  beauty  counts  with  Jane.    It  does( 
with  every  one.     She's  probably  fallen  in  love." 

That  was  all  we  said  about  it.    We  talked  for  the  rest 
of  the  evening  about  the  Fact. 


But  when  I  went  to  Jane's  wedding,  I  understood  about 
the  "number  of  other  people"  that  Hobart  let  Jane  in  to. 
They  had  been  married  that  afternoon  by  the  Registrar, 
Jane  having  withstood  the  pressure  of  her  parents,  who 
preferred  weddings  to  be  in  churches.  Hobart  didn't  much 
care;  he  was,  he  said,  a  Presbyterian  by  upbringing,  but 
sat  loosely  to  it,  and  didn't  care  for  fussy  weddings.  Jane 
frankly  disbelieved  in  what  she  called  "all  that  sort  of  thing." 
So  they  went  before  the  Registrar,  and  gave  a  party  in  the 
evening  at  the  Carlton. 

We  all  went,  even  Juke,  who  had  failed  to  snatch  Jane 
from  the  burning.  I  don't  know  that  it  was  a  much  queerer 
party  than  other  wedding  parties,  which  are  apt  to  be 
an  ill-assorted  mixture  of  the  bridegroom's  circle  and  the 
bride's.  And,  except  for  Jane's  own  personal  friends,  these 
two  circles  largely  overlapped  in  this  case.  The  room  was 
full  of  journalists,  important  and  unimportant,  business  peo- 
ple, literary  people,  and  a  few  politicians  of  the  same  colour 
as  the  Pinkerton  press.  There  were  a  lot  of  dreadful  women, 
who,  I  suppose,  were  Lady  Pinkerton's  friends  (probably 
literary  women;  one  of  them  was  introduced  to  Juke  as 
"the  editress  of  Forget-me-not"},  and  a  lot  of  vulgar  men, 
many  of  whom  looked  like  profiteers.  But,  besides  all  these, 
there  were  undoubtedly  interesting  people  and  people  of  im- 
portance. And  I  realised  that  the  editor  of  the  Haste,  like 


POTTERISM  59 

the  other  editors  of  important  papers,  must  of  necessity,  as 
Katherine  had  said,  have  a  lot  to  do  with  such  people. 

And  there,  in  the  middle  of  a  group  of  journalists,  was 
Jane;  Jane,  in  a  square-cut,  high-waisted,  dead  white  frock, 
with  her  firm,  round,  young  shoulders  and  arms,  and  her 
firm,  round  young  face,  and  her  dark  hair  cut  across  her 
broad  white  forehead,  parted  a  little  like  a  child's  at  one 
side,  and  falling  thick  and  straight  round  her  neck  like  a 
mediaeval  page's.  She  wore  a  long  string  of  big  amber 
beads — Hobart's  present — and  a  golden  girdle  round  her 
high,  sturdy  waist. 

I  saw  Jane  in  a  sense  newly  that  evening,  not  having 
seen  her  for  some  time.  And  I  saw  her  again  as  I  had 
often  seen  her  in  the  past — a  greedy,  lazy,  spoilt  child,  deter- 
mined to  take  and  keep  the  best  out  of  life,  and,  if  possible, 
pay  nothing  for  it.  A  profiteer,  as  much  as  the  fat  little 
match  manufacturer,  her  uncle,  who  was  talking  to  Hobart, 
and  in  whom  I  saw  a  resemblance  to  the  twins.  And  I  saw 
too  Jane's  queer,  lazy,  casual  charm,  that  had  caught  and 
held  Hobart,  and  weaned  him  from  the  feminine  graces 
and  obviousnesses  of  Clare. 

Hobart  stood  near  Jane,  quiet  and  agreeable  and  good- 
looking.  A  second-rate  chap,  running  a  third-rate  paper, 
Jane  had  married  him,  for  all  her  clear-headed  intellectual 
scorn  of  the  second-rate,  because  she  was  second-rate  her- 
self, and  didn't  really  care. 

And  there  was  little  Pinkerton  chatting  with  Northcliffe, 
his  rival  and  friend,  and  Lady  Pinkerton  boring  a  high 
Foreign  Office  official  very  nearly  to  yawns,  and  Clare 
Potter,  flushed  and  gallantly  gay,  flitting  about  from  per- 
son to  person  (Clare  was  always  restless;  she  had  none  of 
Jane's  phlegm  and  stolidity),  and  Johnny,  putting  in  a  fairly 
amusing  time  with  his  own  friends  and  acquaintances,  and 
xFrank  Potter  talking  to  Juke  about  his  new  parish.  Frank, 


60  POTTERISM 

discontented  with  the  war  because  he  couldn't  get  out  to 
France  without  paying  the  price  that  Juke  had  paid,  was 
satisfied  with  life  for  the  moment,  having  just  been  given 
a  fashionable  and  rich  London  living,  where  many  hundreds 
weekly  sat  under  him  and  heard  him  preach.  Juke  wasn't 
the  member  of  that  crowd  I  should  personally  have  selected 
to  discuss  fashionable  and  overpaid  livings  with,  had  I  just 
accepted  one,  but  they  were  the  only  two  parsons  in  the  room, 
so  I  suppose  Potter  thought  it  appropriate.  I  overheard 
pleased  fragments  such  a?  "Twenty  thousand  communicants 
.  .  .  only  standing  room  at  Sunday  evensong,"  which  in- 
dicated that  the  new  parish  was  a  great  success. 

"That  poor  chap,"  Jukie  said  to  me  afterwards.  "He's 
in  a  wretched  position.  He  has  to  profess  Christianity,  and 
he  doesn't  want  even  to  try  to  live  up  to  it.  At  least,  when- 
ever he  has  a  flash  of  desire  to,  that  atheist  wife  of  his  puts 
it  out.  She's  the  worst  sort  of  atheist — the  sort  that  says 
her  prayers  regularly.  Why  are  parsons  allowed  to  marry? 
Or  if  they  must,  why  can't  their  wives  be  chosen  for  them 
by  a  special  board?  And  what,  in  heaven's  name,  came 
over  a  Potter  that  he  should  take  Orders?  The  fight 
between  Potterism  and  Christianity — it's  the  funniest 
spectacle — and  the  saddest.  ..." 

But  Juke  on  Christianity  always  leaves  me  cold.     The 

nation  to  which  I   (on  one  side)  belong  can't  be  expected 

to  look  at  Christianity  impartially — we  have  suffered  too 

much  at  the  hands  of  Christians.    Juke  and  the  other  hopeful 

and  ardent  members  of  his  Church  may  be  able  to  separate 

f  Christianity  from  Christians,  and  not  judge  the  one  by  the 

j  other;  but  I  can't.     The  fact  that  Christendom  is  what  it 

-  is  has  always  disposed  of  Christianity  as  a  working  force,  to 

my  mind.     Judaism  is  detestable,  but  efficient;  Christianity   ' 

is  well-meaning  but  a  failure.     As,  of  course,  parsons  like 

Juke  would  be  and  are  the  first  to  admit.     They  say  it 


POTTERISM  61 

aims  so  high  that  it's  bound  to  fail,  which  is  probably  true 
\But  that  makes  it  pretty  useless  as  a  working  human  religion. 
Anyhow,  I  quite  agree  with  Juke  that  it  is  comic  to  see 
poor  little  nonentities  like  Frank  Potter  caught  in  it,  tangled 
up  in  it,  and  trying  to  get  free  and  carry  on  as  though 
it  wasn't  there. 

Of  course  nearly  all  the  rest  of  that  crowd  at  Jane's 
wedding  was  carrying  on  as  if  Christianity  weren't  there 
without  the  least  trouble  or  struggle.  They  were  quite 
right;  it  wasn't  there.  Nothing  was  there,  for  most  of 
them,  but  self-interest  and  personal  desire.  We  were,  the 
lot  of  us,  out  to  make — to  grab  and  keep  and  enjoy.  Nothing 
else  counted.  What  could  Christianity  do,  a  frail,  tilting, 
crusading  St.  George,  up  against  the  monster  dragon  Grab, 
who  held  us  all  in  his  coils.  It's  no  use,  Jukie;  it  never 
was  and  never  will  be  any  use. 

I  suddenly  grew  very  tired  of  that  party.  It  seemed  a 
monster  meeting  of  Potterites  at  play — mediocrity,  second- 
rateness,  humbug,  muddle,  cant,  cheap  stunts — the  room 
was  full  of  it  all. 

I  went  across  to  Jane  to  say  good-bye.  I  had  scarcely 
spoken  to  her  yet.  I  had  never  congratulated  her  on  her 
engagement,  but  Jane  wouldn't  mind  about  that  or  expect 
me  to. 

All  I  could  say  now  was,  "I'm  afraid  I've  got  to  get 
back.  I've  some  work  waiting." 

She  said,  "Is  it  any  use  my  sending  you  anything  for 
the  Factr 

"From  the  enemy's  camp?"  I  smiled  at  her.  She  smiled 
too. 

"I've  not  ratted,  you  know.  I'm  still  an  A.  P.  I  shall 
come  on  the  next  tour  of  investigation,  whenever  that  is." 

"Shall  you  write  for  the  Haste?"   I  asked  her. 

"Sometimes,  I  expect.     Oliver  says  he  can  get  me  some 


62  POTTERISM 

of  the  reviewing.  And  occasional  non-controversial  articles. 
But  I  don't  want  to  be  tied  up  with  it ;  I  want  to  write  for 
other  papers,  too.  .  .  .  You  take  Johnny's  poetry,  I  ob- 
serve." 

"Sometimes.  That's  Peacock's  fault,  not  mine.  .  .  . 
Send  along  anything  you  think  may  suit,  by  all  means,  and 
we'll  consider  it.  You'll  most  likely  get  it  back — if  you 
remember  to  enclose  a  stamped  envelope.  .  .  .  Good-night, 
and  thank  you  for  asking  me  to  your  party.  Good-night, 
Hobart." 

j  said  good-bye  to  Lady  Pinkerton,  and  went  back  to  the 
Fact  office,  for  it  was  press  aight. 

So  Jane  got  married. 


CHAPTER  II 

DINING  WITH   THE    HOBARTS 

1 

THAT  May  was  very  hot.  One  sweltered  in  offices, 
streets,  and  underground  trains.  You  don't  expect 
this  kind  of  weather  in  early  May,  which  is  usually  a  time 
of  bitter  frosts  and  biting  winds,  punctuated  by  thunder- 
storms. It  told  on  one's  nerves.  One  got  sick  of  work 
and  people.  I  quarrelled  all  round ;  with  Peacock  about 
the  paper,  with  our  typist  about  her  punctuation,  with  my 
family  about  my  sister's  engagement.  Rosalind  (that  was 
the  good  old  English  name  they  had  given  her)  had  been 
brought  up,  like  myself,  in  the  odour  of  public  school  and 
Oxford  Anglicansim  (she  had  been  at  Lady  Margaret 
Hall).  My  father  had  grown  up  from  his  early  youth 
most  resolutely  English,  and  had  married  the  daughter 
of  a  rich  Manchester  cotton  manufacturer.  Their  two 
children,  Sidneys  from  birth  were  to  ignore  the  unhappy 
Yiddish  strain  that  was  branded  like  a  deep  disgrace  into 
their  father's  earliest  experience.  It  was  unlucky,  for  my 
parents  that  both  Rosalind  and  I  reverted  to  type.  Rosalind 
was  very  lovely,  very  clever,  and  unmistakably  a  Jewess. 
At  Roedean  she  pretended  she  wasn't;  who  wouldn't?  She 
was  still  there  when  I  came  of  age  and  became  Gideon, 
so  she  didn't  join  me  in  that.  But  when  she  left  school 
and  went  up  to  Oxford,  she  began  to  develop  and  expand 
mentally,  and  took  her  own  line,  and  by  the  time  she  was 


64  POTTERISM 

twenty  she  was,  as  I  never  was,  a  red-hot  nationalist.  We 
were  neither  of  us  inclined  to  Judaism  in  religion;  we 
shook  off  the  misfit  of  Anglicanism  at  an  early  age  (we 
both  refused  at  fifteen  to  be  confirmed),  but  didn't  take  to 
our  national  faith,  which  we  both  disliked  extremely.  Nor  : 
did  we  like  most  of  our  fellow  Jews;  I  think  as  a  race 
we  are  narrow,  cowardly,  avaricious,  and  mean-spirited,  and  ; 
Rosalind  thinks  we  are  oily.  (She  and  I  aren't  oily,  by 
the  way;  we  are  both  the  lean  kind,  perhaps  because,  after 
all,  we  are  half  English.)  I  only  reverted  to  our  original 
name  because  I  was  sickened  of  the  Sidney  humbug.  But 
we  learnt  Yiddish,  and  read  Hebrew  literature,  and  dis- 
cussed repatriation,  and  maintained  that  the  Jews  were  the 
brains  of  the  world.  It  was  a  cross  to  our  parents.  But  far 
more  bitter  to  them  than  even  my  change  of  name  was 
Rosalind's  engagement,  this  spring  of  1919,  to  Boris  Stefan. 
Boris  had  been  living  and  painting  in  London  for  some 
years ;  his  home  had  been  in  Moscow ;  he  had  barely  escaped 
with  his  life  from  a  pogrom  in  1912,  and  had  since  then 
lived  in  England.  He  had  served  in  the  war,  belonged  to 
several  secret  societies  of  a  harmless  sort,  painted  pictures 
that  had  attracted  a  good  deal  of  critical  notice,  and  pro- 
fessed Bolshevik  sympathies,  of  a  purely  academic  nature  (as 
so  many  of  these  sympathies  are)  on  the  grounds  that  Bol- 
shevism was  a  Jewish  movement.  He  and  I  differed  on 
the  subject  of  Bolshevism.  I  have  never  seen  any  signs  either 
of  constructive  ability  or  sound  principles  in  any  Bolshevik 
leader ;  nothing  but  enterprise,  driving-power,  vindictiveness,  j 
Hebrew  cunning,  and  a  criminal  ruthlessness.  They're 
not  statesmen.  And  Bolshevism,  as  so  far  manifested,  isn't 
a  statesmanlike  system ;  it  holds  the  reins  too  tight.  I  don't 
condemn  it  for  the  cruelties  committed  in  its  name,  because 
whenever  Russians  get  excited  there'll  be  fiendish  cruelties; 
Russians  are  like  that — the  most  cruel  devils  in  earth  or 


POTTERISM  65 

hell.     Bolshevist  Russians  are  no  worse  in  that  way  than  ' 
Czarist   Russians.      Except  when    I   am   listening  to   their  \ 
music  I  loathe  the  whole  race ;  great  stupid,  brutal,  immoral,   ( 
sentimental  savages.   .    .    .   When   I  think  of  them   I   feel  . 
a  kind  of  nausea,  oddly  touched  with   fear,  that  must  be  ( 
hereditary,  I  suppose.     After  all,  my  father,  as  a  child  of  \ 
five,  saw  his  mother  outraged  and  murdered  by  Russian  po- 
lice.    Anyhow,  Bolshevism,  in  Russian  hands,  has  become 
a  kind  of  stupid,  crazy,  devil's  game,  as  everything  always 
has. 

But  I  don't  want  to  discuss  Bolshevism  here.  Boris  Stefan 
hadn't  really  anything  to  do  with  it.  He  wasn't  a  politician. 
He  was  a  dreamy,  simple,  untidy,  rather  childlike  person, 
with  a  wonderful  gift  for  painting.  Rosalind  and  I  had 
got  to  know  him  at  the  Club.  They  were  both  beautiful, 
and  it  hadn't  taken  them  long  to  fall  in  love.  One  Russian- 
Jewish  exile  marrying  another — that  was  the  bitterness  of  it 
to  our  very  Gentile  mother  and  our  Sidneyfied  father,  who 
had  spent  fifty  years  living  down  his  origin. 

So  I  was  called  in  to  assist  in  averting  the  catastrophe. 
I  wouldn't  say  anything  except  that  it  seemed  very  suitable, 
and  that  annoyed  my  mother.  I  remember  that  she  and 
I  and  Rosalind  argued  round  and  round  it  for  an  hour  one 
hot  evening  in  the  drawing-room  at  Queen's  Gate.  Finally 
my  mother  said,  "Oh,  very  well.  If  Rosalind  wants  a 
lot  of  fat  Yid  babies  with  hooked  noses  and  oily  hair,  all 
lending  money  on  usury  instead  of  getting  into  debt  like 
Christians,  let  her  have  them.  I  wash  my  hands  of  the 
lot  of  you.  I  don't  know  what  I've  done  to  deserve  two 
Sheenies  for  children." 

That  made  Rosalind  giggle,  and  eased  the  acrimony 
of  the  discussion.  My  mother  was  a  little  fair  woman, 
sharp-tongued  and  quick-tempered,  but  with  a  sense  of  fun. 

My  father  had  no  sense  of   fun.     I   think  it  had  been 


66  POTTERISM 

crushed  out  of  him  in  his  cradle.  He  was  a  silent  man 
(though  he  could,  like  all  Jews,  be  eloquent),  with  a  thin 
face  and  melancholy  dark  eyes.  I  am  supposed  to  look  like 
him,  I  believe.  He,  too,  spoke  to  me  that  evening  about 
Rosalind's  engagement.  I  remember  how  he  walked  up  and 
down  the  dining-room,  with  his  hands  behind  him  and 
his  head  bent  forward,  and  his  quick,  nervous  jerky  move- 
ments. 

"I  don't  like  it,  Arthur.  I  feel  as  if  we  had  all  climbed 
up  out  of  a  very  horrible  pit  into  a  place  of  safety  and 
prosperity  and  honour,  and  as  if  the  child  was  preparing  to 
leap  down  into  the  pit  again.  She  doesn't  know  what  it's 
like  to  be  a  Jew.  I  do,  and  I've  saved  you  both  from  it, 
and  you  both  seem  bent  on  returning  to  the  pit  whence 
you  were  digged.  We're  an  outcast  people,  my  dear;  an 
outcast  people.  ..." 

His  black  eyes  were  haunted  by  memories  of  old  fears; 
the  fears  his  ancestors  had  had  in  them,  listening  behind 
frail  locked  doors  for  the  howl  "Down  with  the  Jews !"  The 
fears  that  had  been  branded  by  savages  into  his  own  infant 
consciousness  half  a  century  ago ;  the  fears  seared  later  into 
the  soul  of  a  boy  by  boyish  savages  at  an  English  school; 
the  fears  of  the  grown  man,  always  hiding  something,  always 
pretending,  always  afraid  .  .  . 

I  discovered  then — and  this  is  why  I  am  recording  this 
family  incident  here,  why  it  connects  with  the  rest  of  my 
life  at  this  time — that  Potterism  has,  for  one  of  its  surest 
bases,  fear.  The  other  bases  are  ignorance,  vulgarity,  mental 
laziness,  sentimentality,  and  greed.  The  ignorance  which 
does  not  know  facts;  the  vulgarity  which  cannot  appreciate 
values;  the  laziness  which  will  not  try  to  learn  either  of 
these  things;  the  sentimentality  which,  knowing  neither,  is 
stirred  by  the  valueless  and  the  untrue;  the  greed  which 
grabs  and  exploits.  But  fear  is  worst;  the  fear  of  public 


POTTERISM  67 

opinion,  the  fear  of  scandal,  the  fear  of  independent  thought, 
of  loss  of  position,  of  discomfort,  of  consequences,  of  truth. 

My  poor  parents  were  afraid  of  social  damage  to  their 
child ;  afraid  lest  she  should  be  mixed  up  with  something 
low,  outcast,  suspected.  Not  all  my  father's  intellectual 
oriiliance,  nor  all  my  mother's  native  wit,  could  save  them 
from  this  pathetic,  vulgar,  ignorant  piece  of  snobbery. 
Pathetic,  vulgar,  and  ignorant,  because,  if  they  had  only 
known  it,  Rosalind  stood  to  lose  nothing  she  cared  for  by 
allying  herself  with  a  Jewish  painter  of  revolutionary 
theories.  Not  a  single  person  whose  friendship  she  cared 
for  but  would  be  as  much  her  friend  as  before.  She  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  bourgeoisie,  bristling  with  prejudices 
and  social  snobberies,  who  made,  for  instance,  my  mother's 
world.  And  that  is  what  one  generation  should  always' 
try  to  understand  about  another — how  little  (probably)  each 
cares  for  the  other's  world. 

Of  course,  Rosalind  married  Boris  Stefan.  And,  as  I 
have  said,  the  whole  incident  is  only  mentioned  to  illustrate 
how  Potterism  lurks  in  secret  places,  and  flaunts  in  open 
places,  prevading  the  whole  fabric  of  human  society. 


Peace  with  Germany  was  signed,  as  every  one  knows,  on 
June  28th.  Nearly  every  one  crabbed  it,  of  course,  the  Fact 
with  the  rest.  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  did,  as  Garvin  put 
it,  sow  dragon's  teeth  over  Europe.  It  certainly  seemed  a 
poor  unconstructive,  expensive,  brittle  thing  enough.  But 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  nearly  all  peace  treaties  are 
pretty  bad.  You  have  to  have  them,  however,  and  you 
may  as  well  make  the  best  of  them.  Anyhow,  bad  peace 
as  it  looked,  at  least  it  was  peace,  and  that  was  some- 
thing new  and  unusual.  And  I  confess  frankly  that  it 


68  POTTERISM 

has,  so  far,  held  together  longer  than  I,  for  one,  ever 
expected  it  would.  (I  am  writing  this  in  January,  1920.) 

The  Fact  published  a  cheery  series  of  articles,  dealing  with 
each  clause  in  turn,  and  explaining  why  it  was  bound  to 
lead,  immediately  or  ultimately,  to  war  with  some  one  or 
other.  I  wrote  some  of  them  myself.  But  I  was  out  on 
some  points,  though  most  haven't  had  time  yet  to  prove 
themselves. 

"Now,"  said  Jane,  the  day  after  the  signature,  "I  sup- 
pose we  can  get  on  with  the  things  that  matter." 

She  meant  housing,  demobilisation,  proportional  represen- 
tation, health  questions,  and  all  the  good  objects  which  the 
Society  for  Equal  Citizenship  had  at  heart.  She  had  been 
writing  some  articles  in  the  Daily  Haste  on  these.  They 
were  well-informed  and  intelligent,  but  not  expert  enough 
for  the  Fact.  And  that,  as  I  began  to  see,  was  partly  where 
Hobart  came  in.  Jane  wrote  cleverly,  clearly,  and  con- 
cisely— better  than  Johnny  did.  But  in  these  days  of  over- 
crowded competent  journalism — well,  it  is  not  unwise  to 
marry  an  editor  of  standing.  It  gives  you  a  better  place  in 
the  queue. 

I  dined  at  the  Hobart's  on  June  29th,  for  the  first  time 
since  their  marriage.  We  were  a  party  of  six.  Katherine 
Varick  was  there,  and  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Amer- 
ican Legation  and  his  wife. 

Jane  handled  her  parties  competently,  as  she  did  other 
things.  A  vivid,  jolly  child  she  looked,  in  love  with  life 
and  the  fun  and  importance  of  her  new  position.  The 
bachelor  girl  or  man  just  married  is  an  amusing  study  to 
n:e.  Especially  the  girl,  with  her  new  responsibilities,  her 
new  and  more  significant  relation  to  life  and  society.  Later 
she  is  sadly  apt  to  become  dull,  to  have  her  individuality 
merged  in  the  eternal  type  of  the  matron  and  the  mother; 
her  intellect  is  apt  to  lose  its  edge,  her  mind  its  grip.  It  is 


POTTERISM  69 ' 

the  sacrifice  paid  by  the  individual  to  the  race.  But  at  first 
she  is  often  a  delightful  combination  of  keen-witted  jolly 
girl  and  responsible  woman. 

We  talked,  I  remember,  partly  about  the  Government, 
and  how  soon  Northcliffe  would  succeed  in  turning  it  out. 
The  Pinkerton  press  was  giving  its  support  to  the  Gov- 
ernment. The  Weekly  Fact  was  not.  But  we  didn't  want 
them  out  at  once;  we  wanted  to  keep  them  on  until  some 
one  of  constructive  ability,  in  any  party,  was  ready  to  take 
the  reins.  The  trouble  about  the  Labour  people  was  that 
so  far  there  was  no  one  of  constructive  ability ;  they  were 
manifestly  unready.  They  had  no  one  good  enough.  No 
party  had.  It  was  the  old  problem,  never  acuter,  of  "Pro- 
duce the  Man."  If  Labour  was  to  produce  him,  I  suspected 
that  it  would  take  at  least  a  generation  of  hard  political 
training  and  education.  If  Labour  had  got  in  then,  it  would 
have  been  a  mob  of  uneducated  and  uninformed  sentimen- 
talists, led  and  used  by  a  few  trained  politicians  who  knew 
the  tricks  of  the  trade.  It  would  be  far  better  for  them 
to  wait  till  the  present  generation  of  honest  mediocrities  died 
out,  and  a  new  and  differently  educated  generation  were 
ready  to  take  hold.  University-trained  Labour — that  bug- 
bear of  Barnes' — if  there  is  any  hope  for  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, which  probably  there  is  not,  I  believe  it  lies  there.  It 
is  a  very  small  one,  at  the  best.  Anyhow,  it  certainly  did  not 
at  this  period,  lie  in  the  parliamentary  Labour  Party,  that 
body  of  incompetents  in  an  incompetent  .House. 

It  was  in  discussing  this  that  I  discovered  that  Hobart 
couldn't  discuss.  He  could  talk;  he  could  assert;  produce 
opinions  and  information,  but  he  couldn't  meet  or  answer 
arguments.  And  he  was  cautious,  afraid  of  committing  him- 
self, afraid,  I  fancied,  of  exposing  gulfs  in  his  equipment 
of  information,  for  like  other  journalists  of  his  type,  his 
habit  was  to  write  about  things  of  which  he  knew  little. 


70  POTTERISM 

Old  Pinkerton  remarked  once,  at  a  dinner  to  American 
newspaper  men,  that  his  own  idea  of  a  good  journalist 
was  a  man  who  could  sit  down  at  any  moment  and  write 
a  column  on  any  subject.  The  American  newspaper  men 
cheered  this;  it  was  their  idea  of  a  good  journalist  too.  It 
is  an  amusing  game,  and  one  encouraged  by  the  Anti-Pot- 
terite  League,  to  waylay  leader-writers  and  tackle  them 
about  their  leaders,  turn  them  inside  out  and  show  how 
empty  they  are.  I've  written  that  sort  of  leader  myself, 
of  course,  but  "not  for  the  Fact;  we  don't  allow  it.  There, 
the  man  who  writes  is  the  man  who  knows,  and  till  some 
one  knows  no  one  writes.  That  is  why  some  people  call 
us  dry,  heavy,  lacking  in  ideas,  and  say  we  are  like  a  Blue 
Book,  or  a  paper  read  to  the  British  Association.  We 
•are  proud  of  that  reputation.  The  Pinkerton  papers  and 
the  others  can  supply  the  ideas;  we  are  out  for  facts. 

Anyhow,  Hobart  I  knew  for  an  ignorant  person.  All 
he  had  was  a  flair  for  the  popular  point  of  view.  That 
was  why  Pinkerton  who  knew  men,  got  hold  of  him.  He 
was  a  true  Potterite.  Possibly  I  always  saw  him  at  his  least 
eloquent  and  his  most  cautious,  because  he  didn't  like  me  and 
knew  I  didn't  like  him.  Even  then  there  had  already  been 
one  or  two  rather  acrimonious  disputes  between  my  paper 
and  his  on  points  of  fact.  The  Daily  Haste  hated  being 
pinned  down  to  and  quarrelled  with  about  facts ;  facts  didn't 
seem  to  the  Pinkerton  press  things  worth  quarrelling  over, 
like  policy,  principles,  or  prejudices.  The  story  goes  that 
iwhen  any  one  told  old  Pinkerton  he  was  wrong  about  some- 
thing, he  would  point  to  his  vast  circulation,  using  it  as 
an  argument  that  he  couldn't  be  mistaken.  If  you  still 
pressed  and  proved  your  point,  he  would  again  refer  to  his 
circulation,  but  using  it  this  time  as  an  indication  of  how 
little  it  mattered  whether  his  facts  were  right  or  wrong. 
Some  one  once  said  to  him  curiously,  "Don't  you  care  that 


POTTERISM  71 

you  are  misleading  so  many  millions?"  To  which  he  replied, 
in  his  dry  little  voice,  "I  don't  lead,  or  mislead,  the  millions. 
They  lead  me."  Little  Pinkerton  sometimes  saw  a  long  way 
farther  into  what  he  was  doing  than  you'd  guess  from  his 
shoddy  press.  He  had  queer  flashes  of  genius. 

But  Hobart  hadn't.  Hobart  didn't  see  anything,  except 
what  he  was  officially  paid  to  see.  A  shallow,  solemn  ass. 

I  looked  suddenly  at  Jane,  and  caught  her  watching  her 
husband  silently,  with  her  considering,  dispassionate  look. 
He  was  talking  to  the  American  Legation  about  the  traffic 
strike  (we  were  a  round  table,  and  the  talk  was  general). 

Then  I  knew  that,  whether  Jane  had  ever  been  in  love 
with  Hobart  or  not,  she  was  not  so  now.  I  knew  further, 
or  thought  I  knew,  that  she  saw  him  precisely  as  I  did. 

Of  course  she  didn't.  His  beauty  came  in — it  always  does, 

between  men   and  women,   confusing  the   issues — and   her 

special  relation  to  him,  and  a  hundred  other  things.     The 

(  relation  between  husband  and  wife  is  too  close  and  too  com- 

'   plcx  for  clear  thinking.     It  seems  always  to  lead  either  to 

\    too  much  regard  or  to  an  excess  of  irritation,   and  often 

L  to  both. 

Jane  looked  away  from  Hobart,  and  met  my  eyes  watching 
her.  Her  expression  didn't  alter,  nor,  probably,  did  mine. 
But  something  passed  between  us;  some  unacknowledged 
mutual  understanding  held  us  together  for  an  instant.  It 
was  unconscious  on  Jane's  part  and  involuntary  on  mine. 
She  hadn't  meant  to  think  over  her  husband  with  me;  I 
hadn't  meant  to  push  in.  Jane  wasn't  loyal,  and  I  wasn't 
well-bred,  but  we  neither  of  us  meant  that. 

I  hardly  talked  to  Jane  that  evening.  She  was  talking 
after  dinner  to  Kntherine  and  the  American  Legation.  I 
had  a  three-cornered  conversation  with  Hobart  and  the  Lega- 
tion's wife,  who  was  of  an  inquiring  turn  of  mind,  like 
all  of  her  race,  and  asked  us  exhausting  questions.  She 


72  POTTERISM 

got  on  to  the  Jewish  question,  and  asked  us  for  our  views 
on  the  reasons  for  anti-Semitism  in  Europe. 

"I've  been  reading  the  New  Witness"  she  said. 

I  told  her  she  couldn't  do  better,  if  she  was  investigating 
anti-Semitism. 

"But  are  they  fair?"  she  asked  ingeniously. 

I  replied  that  there  were  moments  in  which  I  had  a 
horrible  suspicion  that  they  were. 

"Then  the  Jews  are  really  a  huge  conspiracy  plotting  to 
get  the  finances  of  Europe  into  their  hands?"  Her  eyes, 
round  and  shocked,  turned  from  me  to  Hobart. 

He  lightly  waved  her  to  me. 

"You  must  ask  Mr.  Gideon.  The  children  of  Israel  are 
his  specialty." 

His  dislike  of  me  gleamed  in  his  blue  eyes  and  in  his 
supercilious,  cold  smile.  The  Legation's  wife  (no  fool) 
must  have  seen  it. 

I  went  on  talking  rubbish  to  her  about  the  Jews  and  the 
finances  of  Europe.  I  don't  remember  what  particular 
rubbish  it  was,  for  I  was  hardly  aware  of  it  at  the  time. 
What  I  was  vividly  and  intensely  and  quite  suddenly  aware 
of  was  that  I  was  on  fire  with  the  same  anger,  dislike,  and 
contempt  that  burned  in  Hobart  towards  me.  I  knew  that 
evening  that  I  hated  him,  even  though  I  was  sitting  in  his 
house  and  smoking  his  cigarettes.  I  wanted  to  be  savagely 
rude  to  him.  I  think  that  once  or  twice  I  came  very 
near  to  being  so. 


Katherine  and  I  went  home  by  the  same  bus.  I  grumbled 
to  her  about  Hobart  all  the  way.  I  couldn't  help  it;  the 
fellow  seemed  suddenly  to  have  become  a  nervous  disease  to 
me;  I  was  mentally  wriggling  and  quivering  with  him. 


POTTERISM  73 

Katherine  laughed  presently,  in  that  queer,  silent  way  of 
hers. 

"Why  worry?"  she  said.    "You've  not  married  him." 

"Well,  what's  marriage?"  I  returned.  "He's  a  public 
danger — he  and  his  kind." 

Katherine  said  truly,  "There  are  so  many  public  dangers. 
There  really  isn't  time  to  get  agitated  about  them  all." 
Her  mind  seemed  still  to  be  running  on  marriage,  for  she 
added  presently,  "I  think  he'll  find  that  he's  bitten  off  rather 
more  than  he  can  chew,  in  Jane." 

"Jane  can  go  to  the  devil  in  her  own  way,"  I  said,  for 
I  was  angry  with  Jane  too.  "She's  married  a  second-rate 
fellow  for  what  she  thinks  he'll  bring  her.  I  dare  say  she 
has  her  reward.  .  .  .  Katherine,  I  believe  that's  the  very 
essence  of  Potterism — going  for  things  for  what  they'll  bring 
you,  what  they  lead  to,  instead  of  for  the  thing-in-itself. 
Artists  care  for  the  thing-in-itself;  Potterites  regard  things 
as  railway  trains,  always  going  somewhere,  getting  some- 
where. Artists,  students,  and  the  religious — they  have  the 
single  eye.  It's  the  opposite  to  the  commercial  outlook. 
Artists  will  look  at  a  little  fishing  town  or  country  village, 
and  find  it  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy  for  ever,  and  leave 
it  to  itself — unless  they  yield  to  the  devil  and  paint  it  on 
write  about  it.  Potterites  will  exploit  it,  commercialise  it, 
bring  the  railway  to  it — and  the  thing  is  spoilt.  Oh,  the 
Potterites  get  there  all  right,  confound  them.  They're  the 
progressives  of  the  world.  They — they  have  their  reward." 

(It's  a  queer  thing  how  Jews  can't  help  quoting  the  New 
Testament — even  Jews  without  religion). 

"We  seem  to  have  decided,"  Katherine  said,  "that  Jane 
is  a  Potterite." 

"Morally  she  is.  Not  intellectually.  You  can  be  a  Pot- 
terite in  many  ways.  Jane  accepts  the  second-rate,  though 
she  recognizes  it  as  such  .  .  .  The  plain  fact  is,"  I  was 


74  POTTERISM 

in  a  fit  of  savage  truth-speaking  "that  Jane  is  second-rate." 

"Well  ..." 

The  gesture  of  Katherine's  square  shoulders  may  have 
meant  several  things — "Aren't  we  all?"  or  "Surely  that's 
very  obvious,"  or  "I  can't  be  bothered  to  consider  Jane 
any  more,"  or  merely  "After  all  we've  just  dined  there." 

Anyhow,  Katherine  got  off  the  bus  at  this  point. 

I  was  left  repeating  to  myself,  as  if  it  had  been  a  new 
discovery,  which  it  wasn't,  "Jane  is  second-rate.  .  .  ." 


CHAPTER  III 

SEEING  JANE 


JANE  was  taking  the  chair  at  a  meeting  of  a  section  of 
the  Society  for  Equal  Citizenship.  The  speakers  were 
all  girls  under  thirty  who  wanted  votes.  They  spoke  rather 
well.  They  weren't  old  enough  to  have  become  sentimental, 
and  they  were  mostly  past  the  conventional  cliches  of  the 
earlier  twenties.  In  extreme  youth  one  has  to  be  second- 
hand; one  doesn't  know  enough,  one  hasn't  lived  or  learnt 
enough,  to  be  first-hand ;  and  one  lacks  self-confidence.  But 
by  five  or  six-and-twenty  one  should  have  left  that  behind. 
One  should  know  what  one  thinks  and  what  one  means, 
and  be  able  to  state  it  in  clear  terms.  That  is  what  these 
girls — mostly  University  girls — did. 

Jane  left  the  chair  and  spoke  too. 

I  hadn't  known  Jane  spoke  so  well.  She  has  a  clever, 
coherent  way  of  making  her  points,  and  is  concise  in  reply 
if  questioned,  quick  at  repartee  if  heckled. 

Lady  Pinkerton  was  sitting  in  the  row  in  front  of  Juke 
and  me.  Mother  and  daughter.  It  was  very  queer  to 
me.  That  wordy,  willowy  fool,  and  the  sturdy,  hard-headed 
girl  in  the  chair,  with  her  crisp,  gripping  mind.  Yet  there 
was  something.  .  .  .  They  both  loved  success.  Perhaps 
that  was  it.  The  vulgarian  touch.  I  felt  it  the  more 
clearly  of  them  because  of  Juke  at  my  side.  And  yet  Jukie 
too.  .  .  .  Only  he  would  always  be  awake  to  it — on  his 
guard,  not  capitulating. 

75 


76  POTTERISM 


Jane  came  round  with  me  after  the  meeting  to  the  Fact 
office,  to  go  through  some  stuff  she  was  writing  for  us  about 
the  meeting.  She  had  to  come  then,  though  it  was  late, 
because  the  next  day  was  press  day.  We  hadn't  been  there 
ten  minutes  when  Hobart's  name  was  sent  in,  with  the 
message  he  was  just  going  home,  and  was  Mrs.  Hobart  ready 
to  come? 

"Well,  I'm  not,"  said  Jane  to  me.  "I  shall  be  quite  ten 
minutes  more.  I'll  go  and  tell  him." 

She  went  outside  and  called  down,  "Go  on,  Oliver.  I 
shall  be  some  time  yet." 

"I'll  wait,"  he  called  up,  and  Jane  came  back  into  the 
room. 

We  went  on  for  quite  ten  minutes. 

When  she  went  down  Hobart  was  standing  by  the  front 
door,  waiting. 

"How  did  you  track  me?"  Jane  asked. 

"Your  mother  told  me  where  you'd  gone.  She  called 
at  the  Haste  on  her  way  home.  Good-night,  Gideon." 

They  went  out  together,  and  I  returned  to  the  office, 
irritated  a  little  by  being  hurried.  It  was  just  like  Lady 
Pinkerton,  I  thought,  to  have  gone  round  to  Hobart  in- 
citing him  to  drag  Jane  from  my  office.  There  had  been  cold- 
ness, if  not  annoyance,  in  Hobart's  manner  to  me. 

Well,  confound  him,  it  wasn't  to  be  expected  that  he 
should  much  care  for  his  wife  to  write  for  the  Fact.  But 
he  might  mind  his  own  business  and  leave  Jane  to  mind 
hers,  I  thought. 

Peacock  came  in  at  this  point  and  we  worked  till  mid- 
night. 

Peacock  opened  a  parcel  of  review  books  from  Hubert 


POTTERISM  77 

Wilkins — all  tripe,  of  course.  He  turned  them  over,  im- 
patiently. 

"What  fools  the  fellows  are  to  go  on  sending  us  their 
rubbish.  They  might  have  learnt  by  now  that  we  never 
take  any  notice  of  them,"  he  grumbled.  He  picked  out 
one  with  a  brilliant  wrapper — "A  Cabinet  Minister's  Wtfe, 
by  Leila  Yorke.  .  .  .  That  woman  needs  a  lesson,  Gideon. 
She's  a  public  nuisance.  I've  a  good  mind — a  jolly  good 
mind — to  review  her,  for  once.  What?  Or  do  you  think 
it  would  be  infra  dig?  Well,  what  about  an  article,  then — 
we'd  get  Neilson  to  do  one — on  the  whole  tribe  of  fiction- 
writing  fools,  taking  Lady  Pinkerton  for  a  peg  to  hang  it 
on?  .  .  .  After  all,  we  are  the  organ  of  the  Anti-Potter 
League.  We  ought  to  hammer  at  Potterite  fiction  as  well 
as  at  Potterite  journalism  and  politcs.  For  two  pins  I'd  get 
Johnny  Potter  to  do  it.  He  would,  I  believe." 

"I'm  sure  he  would.  But  it  would  be  a  little  too  indecent. 
Neilson  shall  do  it.  Besides,  he'd  do  it  better.  Or  do 
it  yourself." 

"Will  you?" 

"I  will  not.  My  acquaintance  with  the  subject  is  in- 
adequate, and  I've  no  intention  of  improving  it." 

In  the  end  Peacock  did  it  himself.  It  was  pretty  good, 
and  pretty  murderous.  It  came  out  in  next  week's  number.  I 
met  Clare  Potter  in  the  street  the  day  after  it  came  out, 
and  she  cut  me  dead.  I  expect  she  thought  I  had  written 
it.  I  am  sure  she  never  read  the  Fact,  but  no  doubt  the 
family  "attention  had  been  drawn  to"  the  article,  as  people 
always  express  it  when  writing  to*  a  paper  to  remonstrate 
about  something  in  it  they  haven't  liked.  I  suppose  they 
think  it  would  be  a  score  for  the  paper  if  they  admitted  that 
they  had  come  across  it  in  the  natural  course  of  things — 
anyhow,  they  want  to  imply  that  it  is,  of  course,  a  paper 
decent  people  don't  see — like  John  Bull,  or  the  People. 


78  POTTERISM 

When  I  met  Johnny  Potter,  he  grinned,  and  said,  "Good 
for  you,  old  bean.  Or  was  it  Peacock?  My  mother's 
persuaded  it  was  you,  and  she'll  never  forgive  you.  Poor 
old  mater,  she  thought  her  new  book  rather  on  the  intel- 
lectual side.  ...  I  say,  I  wish  Peacock  would  send  me 
Guthrie's  new  book  to  do." 

That  was  Johnny  all  over.  He  was  always  asking  for 
what  he  wanted,  instead  of  waiting  for  what  we  thought 
fit  to  send  him.  I  was  sure  that  when  he  published  a 
book,  he'd  write  round  to  the  editors  telling  them  who 
was  to  review  it. 

I  said,   "I   think  Neilson's  going  to  do   it,"   and  deter- 
mined that  it  should  be  so.     Johnny's  brand  of  grabbingX 
bored   me.      Jane   did    the   same.      A    greedy    pair,    never  / 
seeing  why  they  shouldn't  have  all  they  wanted. 


It  was  at  this  time  (July)  that  a  long,  drawn-out  quarrel 
started  between  the  Weekly  Fact  and  the  Dally  Haste 
about  the  miners'  strike.  The  Pinkerton  press  did  its  level 
best  to  muddle  the  issues  of  that  strike,  by  distorting  some 
facts,  passing  over  others,  and  inventing  more.  By  the 
time  you'd  read  a  leader  in  the  Haste  on  the  subject,  you'd 
have  got  the  impression  that  the  strikers  were  Bolshevists 
helped  by  German  money  and  aiming  at  a  social  revolution, 
instead  of  discontented,  needy,  and  greedy  British  workmen, 
grabbing  at  more  money  and  less  work,  in  the  normal, 
greedy,  human  way  we  all  have.  Bonar  Law,  departing  for 
once  rather  unhappily  from  his  "the  Government  have  given 
me  no  information"  attitude,  announced  that  the  miners  were 
striking  against  conscription  and  the  war  with  Russia.  Some 
Labour  papers  said  they  were  striking  against  the  Govern- 
ment's shifty  methods  and  broken  pledges.  I  am  sure  both 


POTTERISM  79 

parties  credited  them  with  too  much  idealism  and  too  little 
plain  horse-sense.  They  were  striking  to  get  the  pay  and 
hours  they  wanted  out  of  the  Government,  and,  of  course,  for 
nationalisation.  They  were  not  idealists,  and  not  Bolshevists, 
but  frank  grabbers,  like  most  of  us.  But,  as  every  one  will 
remember,  "Bolshevist"  had  become  at  this  period  a  vague 
term  of  abuse,  like  "Hun"  during  the  war.  People  who 
didn't  like  Carson  called  him  a  Bolshevist ;  people  who  didn't 
like  manual  labourers  called  them  Bolshevists.  What  all 
these  users  of  the  mysterious  and  elastic  epithet  lacked  was  a 
clear  understanding  and  definition  of  Bolshevism. 

The  Daily  Haste  of  course  (and,  to  do  it  justice,  many 
other  papers),  used  the  word  freely  as  meaning  the  desire  for 
better  conditions  and  belief  in  the  strike  as  a  legitimate  means 
of  obtaining  them.  I  suppose  it  took  a  shorter  time  to  say  or 
write  than  this  does;  anyhow,  it  bore  a  large,  vague,  Pot- 
terish  meaning  that  was  irresistible  to  people  in  general. 

The  Haste  made  such  a  fool  of  itself  over  the  miners 
that  we  came  to  blows  with  them,  and  quarrelled  all  through 
July  and  August,  mostly  over  trivial  and  petty  points.  I  may 
add  that  the  Fact  was  not  supporting  immediate  nationalisa- 
tion ;  we  were  against  it,  for  reasons  that  it  would  be  too 
tedious  to  explain  here.  (As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  know  that 
all  I  record  of  this  so  recent  history  is  too  tedious;  I  do  not 
seem  to  be  able  to  avoid  most  of  it;  but  even  I  draw  the  line 
somewhere).  The  controversy  between  the  Fact  and  the 
Haste  seemed  after  a  time  to  resolve  itself  largely  into  a 
personal  quarrel  between  Hobart  and  myself.  He  was  an- 
noyed that  Jane  occasionally  wrote  for  us.  I  suppose  it 
was  natural  that  he  should  be  annoyed.  And  he  didn't  like 
her  to  frequent  the  1917  Club,  to  which  a  lot  of  us  be- 
longed. Jane  often  lunched  there,  so  did  I.  She  said  that 
you  got  a  better  lunch  there  than  at  the  Women's  Uni- 
versity Club.  Not  much  better,  but  still,  better.  You  also 


8o  POTTERISM 

met  more  people  you  wanted  to  meet,  as  well  as  more  people 
you  didn't.  We  started  a  sort  of  informal  lunch  club,  which 
met  there  and  lunched  together  on  Thursday.  It  consisted 
of  Jane,  Katherine  Varick,  Juke,  Peacock,  Johnny  Potter, 
and  myself.  Often  other  people  joined  us  by  invitation; 
my  sister  Rosalind  and  her  husband,  any  girl  Johnny  Potter 
was  for  the  moment  in  love  with,  and  friends  of  Peacock's, 
Juke's,  or  mine.  Juke  would  sometimes  bring  a  parson  in ; 
this  was  rather  widening  for  us,  I  think,  and  I  dare  say  for 
"he  parson  too.  To  Juke  it  was  part  of  the  enterprise  of 
un-Potterising  the  Church,  which  was  on  his  mind  a  good 
deal.  He  said  it  needed  un-Potterising  as  much  as  the  State, 
or  literature,  or  journalism,  or  even  the  drama,  and  that 
Potterism  in  it  was  even  more  dangerous  than  in  these.  So, 
when  he  could,  he  induced  parsons  to  join  the  Anti-Potter 
League. 

We  weren't  all  tied  up,  I  may  say,  with  the  political 
party  principles  very  commonly  held  by  members  of  the  1917 
Club.  I  certainly  wasn't  a  socialist,  nor,  wholly,  I  think, 
a  radical;  neither  at  that  time  was  Peacock,  though  he 
became  more  so  as  time  went  on;  nor,  certainly  was  Kath- 
erine. Juke  was,  because  he  believed  that  in  these  prin- 
ciples was  the  only  hope  for  the  world.  And  the  twins 
were,  because  the  same  principles  were  the  only  wear  for  the 
young  intellectual,  at  that  moment.  Johnny,  in  all  things  the 
glass  of  fashion  and  the  mould  of  form,  wore  them  as  he 
wore  his  monocle,  quite  unconscious  of  his  own  reasons  for 
both.  But  it  was  the  idea  of  the  Anti-Potter  League  to 
keep  clear  of  parties  and  labels.  You  can  belong  to  a 
recognised  political  party  and  be  an  Anti-Potterite,  for 
Potterism  is  a  frame  of  mind,  not  a  set  of  opinions_(Juke 
was,  after  Katherine,  the  best  Anti-Potterite  I  have  known, 
though  people  did  their  best  to  spoil  him),  but  it  is  easier, 
and  more  compatible  with  your  objects,  to  be  free  to  think 


POTTERISM  81 

what  you  like  about  everything.  Once  you  are  tied  up  with 
a  party,  you  can  only  avoid  second-handedness,  taking  over 
views  ready-made,  if  you  are  very  strong-minded  indeed. 

Thursday  was  a  fairly  free  afternoon  for  me,  and  Jane 
and  I  somehow  got  into  a  habit  of  going  off  somewhere  to- 
gether after  lunch,  or  staying  on  at  the  club  and  talking. 
Jane  seemed  to  me  to  be  increasingly  interesting;  she  was 
acquiring  new  subtleties,  complexities,  and  comprehensions, 
and  shedding  crudities.  She  wrote  better,  too.  We  took 
her  stuff  sometimes  for  the  Fact.  At  the  same  time,  she 
seemed  to  me  to  be  morally  deteriorating,  as  people  who  grab  \ 
and  take  things  they  oughtn't  to  have  always  do  deteriorate.  / 
As  she  was  trying  all  the  time  to  square  Hobart  with  the 
rest  of  her  life,  fitting  him  in,  as  it  were,  and  he  didn't  fit  in. 
I  was  interested  to  see  what  she  was  making  of  it  all. 


One  Thursday  in  early  September,  when  Juke  and  Jane 
and  I  had  lunched  alone  together  at  the  club,  and  Jane 
and  I  had  gone  off  to  some  meeting  afterwards,  Juke  dropped 
in  on  me  in  the  evening  after  dinner.  He  sat  down  and  lit 
a  pipe,  then  got  up  and  walked  about  the  room,  and  I 
knew  he  had  something  on  his  mind,  but  wasn't  going  to  help 
him  out.  I  felt  hard  and  rather  sore  that  evening. 

Soon  he  said,  in  his  soft,  indifferent  voice,  "Of  course 
you'll  be  angry  at  what  I  am  going  to  say." 

"I  think  it  probable,"  I  replied,  "from  the  look  of  you. 
But  go  on." 

"Well,"  he  said,  quietly,  "I  don't  think  these  Thursday 
lunche^  will  do  any  more." 

"For  you?"  I  asked. 

"For  any  of  us.     Not  with  Jane  Hobart  there."     He 


82  POTTERISM 

wouldn't  look  at  me,  but  stood  by  the  window  looking  out 
at  Gray's  Inn  Road. 

"And  why  not  with  Jane?  Because  she's  married  to  the 
enemy?" 

"It  makes  it  awkward,"  he  murmured. 

"Makes  it  awkward,"  I  repeated.  "How  does  it  make 
it  awkward?  Whom  does  it  make  awkward?  It  doesn't 
make  Jane  awkward.  Nor  me,  nor  any  one  else,  as  far  as  I 
know.  Does  it  make  you  awkward?  I  didn't  know  any- 
thing could  do  that.  But  something  obviously  has,  this 
evening.  It's  not  Jane,  though ;  it's  being  afraid  to  say 
what  you  mean.  You'd  better  spit  it  out,  Jukie.  You're  not 
enough  of  a  Jesuit  to  handle  these  jobs  competently,  you 
know.  I  know  perfectly  well  what  you've  got  on  your 
mind.  You  think  Jane  and  I  are  getting  too  intimate  with 
each  other.  You  think  we're  falling,  or  fallen,  or  about  to 
fall,  in  love." 

"Well,"  he  wheeled  round  on  me,  relieved  that  I  had 
said  it,  "I  do.  And  you  can't  deny  it.  ...  Any  fool 
could  see  it  by  now.  Why,  the  way  you  mooned  about,  de- 
pressed and  sulky,  this  last  month,  when  she's  been  out  of 
town,  and  woke  up  the  moment  she  came  back,  was  enough 
to  tell  any  one." 

"I  dare  say,"  I  said  indifferently.  "People's  minds  are 
usually  offensively  open  to  that  particular  information.  If 
you'll  define  being  in  love,  I'll  tell  you  whether  I'm  in  love 
with  Jane.  .  .  .  I'm  interested  in  Jane;  I  find  her  attrac- 
tive, if  you  like,  extraordinarily  attractive,  though  I  don't 
admire  her  character,  and  she's  not  beautiful.  I  like  to  be 
with  her  and  to  talk  to  her.  On  the  other  hand,  I've 
not  the  least  intention  of  asking  her  to  elope  with  me.  Nor 
would  she  if  I  did.  Well?" 

"You're  in  love,"  Juke  repeated.  "You  mayn't  know  it, 
but  you  are.  And  you'll  get  deeper  in  every  day,  if  you 


POTTERISM  83 

pull  up.    And  then  before  you  know  where  you  are, 
there'll  be  the  most  ghastly  mess." 

"Don't  trouble  yourself,  Jukie.    There  won't  be  a  mess. 
Jane  doesn't  like  messes.    And  I'm  not  quite  a  fool.   Don't 
imagine  melodrama.   ...   I  claim  the  right  to  be  intimate 
with  Jane — well,  if  you  like,  to  be  a  little  in  love  with  Jane 
— and  yet  to  keep  my  head  and  not  play  the  tool.    Why 
should  men  and  women  lose  their  attraction  for  each  other 
just  because  they  marry  and  promise  loyalty  to  some  one 
person?     They  can   keep  that  compact  and   yet  not  shut 
themselves  away  from  other  men  and  other  women.     They  / 
must  have  friends.     Life  can't  be  an  eternal  duet.   .    .    J 
And  here  you  come,  using  that  cant  Potterish  phrase,  'in 
love,'  as  if  love  was  the  sea,  or  something  definite  that  you  y 
must  be  in  or  out  of  and  always  know  which." 

"The  sea — yes,"  Juke  took  me  up.  "It's  like  the  sea; 
it  advances  and  advances,  and  you  can't  stand  there  and 
stop  it,  say  'Thus  far  and  no  farther'  to  it.  All  you  caa 
do  is  turn  your  back  upon  it  and  walk  away  in  time." 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  walk  away.  There's  nothing 
to  walk  away  from.  I've  no  intention  of  behaving  in  a 
dishonourable  way,  and  I  claim  the  right  to  be  friends  with 
Jane.  So  that's  that." 

I  was  angry  with  Juke.  He  was  taking  the  prudish, 
conventional  point  of  view.  I  had  never  yet  been  the  vic- 
tim of  passion ;  love  between  men  and  women  had  always 
rather  bored  me;  it  is  such  a  hot,  stupid,  muddling  thing, 
all  emotion  and  no  thought.  Dull,  I  had  always  thought 
it;  one  of  those  impulses  arranged  by  nature  for  her  own 
purposes,  but  not  in  the  least  interesting  to  the  civilised 
thinking  being.  Juke  had  no  right  to  speak  as  if  I  were  an 
amorous  fool,  liable  to  be  bowled  over  against  my  better 
judgment. 

"I've  told  you  what  I  think,"  said  Juke  bluntly.    "I  can't 


84  POTTERISM 

do  any  more.    It's  your  own  show."    He  took  out  his  watch. 
"I've  got  a  Men's  Social,"  he  said,  and  went. 


And,  after  all,  Juke  was  right.  Juke  was  right.  It 
was  love,  and  I  was  in  it,  and  so  was  Jane.  Five  minutes 
after  Juke  left  me  that  night  I  knew  that.  I  had  been  in 
love  with  Jane  for  years;  perhaps  since  before  the  war, 
only  I  had  never  known  it.  On  that  Anti-Potter  investiga- 
tion tour  I  had  observed  and  analysed  her,  and  smiled 
cynically  to  myself  at  the  commercial  instinct  of  the  Potter 
twins,  the  lack  of  the  fineness  that  distinguished  Katherine 
and  Juke.  I  remembered  that;  but  I  remembered,  too,  how 
white  and  round  Jane's  chin  had  looked  as  it  pressed  against 
the  thymy  turf  on  the  cliif  where  we  lay  above  the  sea. 
All  through  the  war  I  had  seen  her  at  intervals,  enjoying 
life,  finding  the  war  a  sort  of  lark,  and  I  had  hated  her 
because  she  didn't  care  for  the  death  and  torture  of  men, 
for  the  possible  defeat  of  her  country,  or  the  already  achieved 
economic,  moral,  and  intellectual  degradation  of  the  whole 
of  Europe.  She  had  merely  profiteered  out  of  it  all,  and 
had  a  good  time.  I  remembered  now  my  anger  and  my 
scorn ;  but  I  remembered  too  the  squareness  and  the  white- 
ness of  her  forehead  under  her  newly-cut  hair,  that  leave 
when  I  had  first  seen  it  bobbed. 

I  had  been  moved  by  desire  then  without  knowing  it;  I 
had  let  Hobart  take  her,  and  still  not  known.  The  pang 
I  had  felt  had  been  bitterness  at  having  lost  Jane,  not  bit- 
terness against  Jane  for  having  made  a  second-rate  marriage. 

But  I  knew  now.  Juke's  words,  in  restrospect,  were  like 
fire  to  petrol;  I  was  suddenly  all  ablaze. 

In  that  case,  Juke  was  right,  and  we  mustn't  go  on 
meeting  alone.  There  might  be,  as  he  said,  the  most 


POTTERISM  85 

ghastly  mess.  Because  I  knew  now  that  Jane  was  in  love 
with  me  too — a  little. 

We  couldn't  go  on.  It  was  too  second-rate.  It  was 
anti-social,  stupid,  uncivilised,  all  I  most  hated,  to  let  emotion 
play  the  devil  with  one's  reasoned  principles  and  theories. 
I  wasn't  going  to.  It  would  be  sentimental,  sloppy — "the 
world  well  lost  for  love,"  as  in  a  schoolgirl's  favourite  novel, 
a  novel  by  Leila  Yorke. 

Now  there  are  some  loves  that  the  world,  important 
though  it  is,  may  be  well  lost  for — the  love  of  an  idea,  a 
principle,  a  cause,  a  discovery,  a  piece  of  knowledge  or  of 
beauty,  perhaps  a  country;  but  very  certainly  the  love  of 
lovers  is  not  among  these;  it  is  too  common  and  personal 
a  thing.  I  hate  the  whole  tribe  of  sentimental  men  and 
women  who,  impelled  by  the  unimaginative  fool  nature, 
exalt  sexual  love  above  its  proper  place  in  the  scheme  ot 
things.  I  wasn't  going  to  do  it,  or  to  let  the  thing  upset 
my  life  or  Jane's. 

6 

I  kept  away  from  Jane  all  that  week.  She  rang  me  up 
at  the  office  once ;  it  may  have  been  my  fancy  that  her  voice 
sounded  strange,  somehow  less  assured  than  usual.  It  set 
me  wondering  about  that  last  lunch  and  afternoon  together 
which  had  roused  Juke.  Had  it  roused  Jane,  too?  What 
had  happened,  exactly?  How  had  I  spoken  and  looked?  I 
couldn't  remember ;  only  that  I  had  been  glad — very  glad — 
to  have  Jane  back  in  town  again. 

I  didn't  go  to  the  club  next  Thursday.  As  it  happened, 
I  was  lunching  with  some  one  else.  So,  by  Thursday 
evening,  I  hadn't  seen  Jane  for  a  week. 

Wanting  company,  I  went  to  {Catherine's  flat  after  dinner. 
Katherine  had  just  finished  dinner,  and  with  her  was  Jane. 

When  I  saw  her,  lying  there  smoking  in  the  most  com- 


86  POTTERISM 

fortable  arm-chair,  as  usual,  serene  and  lazy  and  pale, 
Juke's  words  blazed  up  between  us  like  a  fire,  and  I  couldn't 
look  at  her. 

I  don't  know  what  we  talked  about;  I  expect  I  was  odd 
and  absent.  I  knew  Katherine  was  looking  at  me,  with 
those  frosty,  piercing  light  blue  eyes  of  hers  that  saw 
through  and  through,  and  beyond.  .  .  . 

All  the  time  I  was  saying  to  myself,  "This  won't  do.  I 
must  chuck  it.  We  mustn't  meet." 

I  think  Jane  talked  about  Abraham  Lincoln,  which  she 
disliked,  and  Lady  Pinkerton's  experiments  in  spiritualism, 
which  were  rather  funny.  But  I  couldn't  have  been  there 
for  more  than  half  an  hour  before  Jane  got  up  to  go.  She 
had  to  get  home,  she  said. 

I  went  with  her.  I  didn't  mean  to,  but  I  did.  And 
here,  if  any  one  wants  to  know  why  I  regard  "being  in 
love"  as  a  disastrous  kink  in  the  mental  machinery,  is  the 
reason.  It  impels  you  to  do  things  against  all  your  rea- 
soned will  and  intentions.  My  madness  drove  me  out 
with  Jane,  drove  me  to  see  her  home  by  the  Hampstead 
tube,  to  walk  across  the  Vale  of  Health  with  her  in  the 
moonlight,  to  go  in  with  her,  and  upstairs  to  the  drawing- 
room. 

All  this  time  we  had  talked  little,  and  of  common,  super- 
ficial things.  But  now,  as  I  stood  in  the  long,  dimly-lit 
room  and  watched  Jane  take  off  her  hat,  drop  it  on  a  table, 
and  stand  for  a  moment  with  her  back  to  me,  turning  over 
the  evening  post,  I  knew  that  I  must  somehow  have  it  out, 
have  things  clear  and  straight  between  us.  It  seemed  to 
me  to  be  the  only  way  of  striking  any  sort  of  a  path 
through  the  intricate  difficulties  of  our  future  relations. 

"Jane,"  I  said  and  she  turned  and  looked  at  me  with 
questioning  gray  eyes. 


POTTERISM  87 

At  that  I  had  no  words  for  explanation  or  anything  else; 
I  could  only  repeat,  "Jane,  Jane,  Jane,"  like  a  fool. 

She  said,  very  low,  "Yes,  Arthur,"  as  if  she  were  assent* 
ing  to  some  statement  I  had  made,  as  perhaps  she  was. 

I  somehow  found  that  I  had  caught  her  hands  in  mine, 
and  so  we  stood  together,  but  still  I  said  nothing  but  "Jane," 
because  that  was  all  that,  for  the  moment,  I  knew. 


Hobart  stood  in  the  open  doorway,  looking  at  us,  white 
and  quiet. 

"Good-evening,"  he  said. 

We  fell  apart,  loosing  each  other's  hands. 

"You're  back  early,  Oliver,"  said  Jane,  composedly. 

"Earlier,  obviously,"  he  returned,  "than  I  was  expected." 

My  anger,  my  hatred,  my  contempt  for  him  and  my 
own  shame  blazed  in  me  together.  I  faced  him,  black  and 
bitter,  and  he  was  not  only  to  me  Jane's  husband,  the 
suspicious,  narrow-minded  ass  to  whom  she  was  tied,  but 
much  more,  the  Potterite,  the  user  of  cant  phrases,  the 
ignorant  player  to  the  gallery  of  the  Pinkerton  press,  the 
fool  who  had  so  little  sense  of  his  folly  that  he  disputed  on 
facts  with  the  experts  who  wrote  for  the  Weekly  Fact. 
In  him  at  that  moment,  I  saw  all  the  Potterism  of  this 
dreadful  world  embodied,  and  should  have  liked  to  have 
Struck  it  dead. 

"What  exactly,"  I  asked  him,  "do  you  mean  by  that?" 

He  smiled. 

Jane  yawned.  "I'm  going  to  take  my  things  off,"  she  said, 
and  went  out  of  the  room  and  up  the  next  flight  of  stairs 
to  her  bedroom.  It  was  her  contemptuous  way  of  indicat- 
ing that  the  situation  was,  in  fact,  no  situation  at  all,  but 
merely  a  rather  boring  conversation. 


88  POTTERISM 

As,  though  I  appreciated  her  attitude,  I  couldn't  agree 
with  her,  I  repeated  my  question. 
Hobart  added  to  his  smile  a  shrug. 


PART  III 
TOLD  BY  LEILA  YORKE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   TERRIBLE  TRAGEDY  ON   THE  STAIRS 

1 

LOVE  and  truth  are  the  only  things  that  count.  1  have 
often  thought  that  they  are  like  two  rafts  on  the 
stormy  sea  of  life,  which  otherwise  would  swamp  and 
drown  us  struggling  human  beings.  If  we  follow  these  two 
stars  patiently,  they  will  guide  us  at  last  into  port.  Love — 
the  love  of  our  kind — the  undying  love  of  a  mother  for  her 
children — the  love,  so  gloriously  exhibited  lately,  of  a  soldier 
for  his  country — the  eternal  love  between  a  man  and  a 
voman,  which  counts  the  world  well  lost — these  are  the 
dues  through  the  wilderness.  And  Truth,  the  Truth  which 
cries  in  the  market-place  with  a  loud  voice  and  will  not  be 
hid,  the  Truth  which  sacrifices  comfort,  joy,  even  life  itself, 
for  the  sake  of  a  clear  vision,  the  Truth  which  is  far 
stranger  than  fiction — this  is  Love's  very  twin. 

For  Love's  sake,  then,  and  for  Truth's,  I  am  writing 
this  account  of  a  very  sad  and  very  dreadful  period  in  the 
lives  of  those  close  and  dear  to  me.  I  want  to  be  very 
frank,  and  to  hide  nothing.  I  think,  in  my  books,  I  am 
almost  too  frank  sometimes;  I  give  offence,  and  hurt  people's 

89 


90  POTTERISM 

egotism  and  vanity  by  speaking  out ;  but  it  is  the  way  I  have 
to  write;  I  cannot  soften  down  facts  to  please.  Just 
as  I  cannot  restrain  my  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  even  though 
it  may  offend  those  who  take  themselves  solemnly;  I  am 
afraid  I  am  naughty  about  such  people,  and  often  give 
offence,  it  is  one  of  the  penalties  attached  to  the  gift  of 
humour.  Percy  often  tells  me  I  should  be  more  careful; 
but  my  dear  Percy's  wonderful  caution,  that  has  helped  to 
make  him  what  he  is,  is  a  thing  that  no  mere  reckless 
woman  can  hope  to  emulate. 


I  am  diverging  from  the  point.  I  must  begin  with  that 
dreadful  evening  of  the  4th  of  September  last.  Clare  was 
dining  with  a  friend  in  town,  and  stopping  at  Jane's  house 
in  Hampstead  for  the  night.  Percy  and  I  were  spending  a 
quiet  evening  at  our  house  at  Potter's  Bar.  We  were  both 
busy  after  dinner;  he  was  in  his  study,  and  I  was  in 
my  den,  as  I  call  it,  writing  another  instalment  of  "Rhoda's 
Gift"  for  the  Evening  Hustle.  I  find  I  write  my  best 
after  dinner;  my  brain  gets  almost  feverishly  stimulated.  My 
doctor  tells  me  I  ought  not  to  work  late,  it  is  not  fair  on 
my  nerves,  but  I  think  every  writer  has  to  live  more  or 
less  on  his  or  her  nervous  capital,  it  is  the  way  of  the 
reckless,  squandering  thriftless  tribe  we  are. 

Laying  down  my  pen  at  10:45  after  completing  my 
chapter,  the  telephone  bell  suddenly  rang.  The  maids  had 
gone  up  to  bed,  so  I  went  into  the  hall  to  take  the  call, 
or  to  put  it  through  to  Percy's  study,  for  the  late  calls  are 
usually,  of  course,  for  him,  from  one  of  the  offices.  But 
it  was  not  for  him.  It  was  Jane's  voice  speaking. 

"Is  that  you,  mother?"  she  said,  quite  quietly  and  steadily. 
"There's  been  an  accident.  Oliver  fell  downstairs.  He 


POTTERISM  91 

fell  backwards  and  broke  his  neck.  He  died  soon  after  the 
doctor  came." 

The  self-control,  the  quiet  pluck  of  these  modern  girls! 
Her  voice  hardly  shook  as  she  uttered  the  terrible  words. 

I  sat  down,  trembling  all  over,  and  the  tears  rushed  to 
my  eyes.  My  darling  child,  and  her  dear  husband,  cut  off 
at  the  very  outset  of  their  mutual  happiness,  and  in  this 
awful  way !  Those  stairs — I  always  hated  them ;  they  are 
so  steep  and  narrow,  and  wind  so  sharply  round  a  corner. 

"Oh,  my  darling,"!  said.  "And  the  last  train  gone,  so 
that  I  can't  be  with  you  till  the  morning.  Is  Clare  there? 

"Yes,"  said  Jane.  "She's  lying  down,  ...  She 
fainted." 

My  poor  darling  Clare!  So  highly-strung,  so  delicate- 
fibred,  far  more  like  me  than  Jane  is!  And  I  always  had 
a  suspicion  that  her  feeling  for  dear  Oliver  went  very  deep 
— deeper,  possibly,  than  any  of  us  ever  guessed.  For,  there 
is  no  doubt  about  it,  poor  Oliver  did  woo  Clare ;  if  he  wasn't 
in  love  with  her  he  was  very  near  it,  before  he  went  off  at 
a  tanget  after  Jane,  who  was  something  new,  and  therefore 
attractive  to  him,  besides  being  thrown  so  much  together 
in  Paris  when  Jane  was  working  for  her  father.  The  dear 
child  has  put  up  a  brave  fight  ever  since  the  engagement, 
and  her  self-control  has  been  wonderful,  but  she  has  not 
been  her  old  self.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  unfortunate 
European  conditions,  I  should  have  sent  her  abroad  for  a 
thorough  change.  It  was  terrible  for  her  to  be  on  the  spot 
when  this  awful  accident  happened. 

"My  dear,  dear  child,"  I  said,  hardly  able  to  speak,  my 
voice  shook  so  with  crying.  "I've  no  words.  .  .  .  Have 
you  rung  up  Frank  and  Johnny?  I  should  like  Frank  to 
be  with  you  to-night;  I  know  he  would  wish  it." 

"No,"  said  Jane.     "It's  no  use  bothering  them  till  to- 


92  POTTERISM 

morrow.  They  can't  do  anything.  Is  daddy  at  home  ?  .  .  . 
You'll  tell  him,  then.  .  .  .  Good-night." 

"Oh,  my  darling,  you  mustn't  ring  off  yet,  indeed  you 
mustn't.  Hold  on  while  I  tell  daddy;  he  would  hate  not 
to  speak  to  you  at  once  about  it." 

"No,  he  won't  need  to  speak  to  me.  He'll  have  to  get 
on  to  the  Haste  at  once,  and  arrange  a  lot  of  things.  I 
can  keep  till  the  morning.  Good-night,  mother." 

She  rang  off.  There  is  something  terrible  to  me  about 
telephone  conversations,  when  they  deal  with  intimate  or 
tragic  subjects;  they  are  so  remote,  cold,  impersonal,  like 
typed  letters;  is  it  because  one  can't  watch  the  soul  in  the 
eyes  of  the  person  one  is  talking  to  ? 


I  went  straight  to  Percy.  He  was  sitting  at  his  writing 
table  going  through  papers.  At  his  side  was  the  black 
coffee  that  he  always  sipped  through  the  evenings,  simmering 
over  a  spirit  lamp.  Percy  will  never  go  up  to  bed  until 
the  small  hours;  I  suppose  it  is  his  newspaper  training.  If 
he  isn't  working,  he  will  sit  and  read,  or  sometimes  play 
patience,  and  always  sip  strong  coffee,  though  his  doctor  has 
told  him  he  should  give  it  up.  But  he  is  like  me;  he  lives 
on  his  nervous  energy,  reckless  of  consequences.  He  spends 
himself,  and  is  spent,  in  the  service  of  his  great  press. 
It  was  fortunate  for  him,  though  I  suppose  I  ought  not  to  say 
it,  that  he  married  a  woman  who  is  also  the  slave  of  litera- 
ture, though  of  a  more  imaginative  branch  of  literature,  and 
who  can  understand  him.  But  then  that  was  inevitable;  he 
could  never  have  cared  for  a  materialistic  woman,  or  a 
merely  domestic  woman.  He  demanded  ideas  in  the  woman 
to  whom  he  gave  himself. 

I  could  hardly  bear  to  tell  him  the  dreadful  news.     I 


POTTERISM  93 

knew  how  overcome  he  would  be,  because  he  was  so  fond 
of  dear  Oliver,  who  was  one  of  his  right  hands,  as  well 
as  a  dear  son-in-law.  And  he  had  always  loved  Jane 
with  a  peculiar  pride  and  affection,  devoted  father  as  he 
was  to  all  his  children,  for  he  said  she  had  the  best  brain 
of  the  lot.  And  Oliver  had  been  doing  so  well  on  the  Daily 
Haste.  Percy  had  often  said  he  was  an  editor  after  his  own 
heart;  he  had  the  flair.  When  Percy  said  some  one  had 
flair,  it  was  the  highest  praise  he  could  give.  He  always 
told  me  I  had  flair,  and  that  was  why  he  was  so  eager  to 
put  my  stories  in  his  papers.  I  remember  his  remark  when 
that  dreadful  man,  Arthur  Gideon,  said  in  some  review  or 
other  (I  dislike  his  reviews,  they  are  so  conceited  and  cock- 
sure, and  show  often  such  bad  taste),  "Flair  and  genius 
are  incompatible."  Percy  said  simply,  "Flair  is  genius."  I 
thought  it  extraordinarily  true.  But  whether  I  have  flair  or 
not,  I  don't  know.  I  don't  think  I  ever  bother  about  what  the 
public  want,  or  what  will  sell.  I  just  write  what  comes 
natural  to  me;  if  people  like  it,  so  much  the  better,  if  they 
don't,  they  must  bear  it!  But  I  will  say  that  they  usually 
do!  No,  I  don't  think  I  have  flair;  I  think  I  have,  in- 
stead, a  message ;  or  many  messages. 

But  I  had  to  break  it  to  Percy.  I  put  my  arms  round 
him  and  told  him,  quite  simply.  He  was  quite  broken  up 
by  it.  But,  of  course,  the  first  thing  he  had  to  do  was  to  get 
on  to  the  Haste  and  let  them  know.  He  told  them  he  would 
be  up  in  the  morning  to  make  arrangements. 

Then  he  sat  and  thought,  and  worked  out  plans  in  his 
head,  in  the  concentrated,  abstracted  way  he  has,  telephoning 
sometimes,  writing  notes  sometimes,  almost  forgetting  my 
presence.  I  love  to  be  at  the  centre  of  the  brain  of  the 
Pinkerton  press  at  the  moments  when  it  is  working  at  top 
speed  like  this.  Cup  after  cup  of  strong  black  coffee  he 
drank,  hardly  noticing  it,  till  I  remonstrated,  and  then  he 


94  POTTERISM 

said  absently,  "Very  well,  dear,  very  well,"  and  drank 
more.  When  I  tried  to  persuade  him  to  come  up  to  bed,  he 
said,  "No,  no;  I  have  things  to  think  out.  I  shall  be  late. 
Leave  me,  my  dear.  Go  to  bed  yourself,  you  need  rest." 
Then  he  turned  from  the  newspaper  owner  to  the  father, 
and  sighed  heavily,  and  said,  "Poor  little  Janie.  Poor  dear 
little  Babs.  Well,  well,  well." 


I  left  him  and  went  upstairs,  knowing  I  must  get  all  the 
strength  I  could  before  tomorrow. 

My  poor  little  girl  a  widow!  I  could  hardly  realise  it. 
And  yet,  alas,  how  many  young  widows  we  have  among  us 
in  these  days!  Only  they  are  widowed  for  a  noble  cause, 
not  by  a  horrid  accident  on  the  stairs.  Poor  Oliver,  of 
course,  had  exemption  from  military  service;  he  never  even 
had  to  go  before  the  tribunal  for  it,  but  had  it  direct  from 
the  War  Office,  like  nearly  all  Percy's  staff,  who  were 
recognised  by  the  Government  as  doing  more  important 
work  at  home  than  they  could  have  done  at  the  front.  I 
have  a  horror  of  the  men  who  evaded  service  during  the 
war,  but  men  like  Oliver  Hobart,  who  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  be  fighting  but  stayed  to  do  invaluable  work  for 
their  country,  one  must  respect.  And  it  seemed  very  bitter 
that  Oliver,  who  hadn't  fallen  in  the  war,  should  have 
fallen  now  down  his  own  stairs.  Poor,  poor  Oliver!  As  I 
lay  in  bed,  unable  to  sleep,  I  saw  his  beautiful  face  before 
me.  He  was  quite  the  most  beautiful  man  I  have  ever 
known.  I  have  given  his  personal  appearance  to  the  hero 
of  one  of  my  novels,  Sidney,  a  Man.  It  was  terrible  to 
me  to  think  of  that  beauty  lost  from  the  world.  Whatever 
view  one  may  take  of  another  world  (and  personally,  far  as 
I  am  from  any  orthodox  view  on  the  subject,  my  spiritual 


POTTERISM  95 

investigations  have  convinced  me  that  there  is,  there  must  be, 
a  life  to  come;  I  have  had  the  most  wonderful  experiences, 
that  may  not  be  denied)  physical  beauty,  one  must  believe, 
is  a  phenomena  of  this  physical  universe,  and  must  perish 
with  the  body.  Unless,  as  some  thinkers  have  conceived, 
the  immortal  soul  wraps  itself  about  in  some  aural  vapour 
that  takes  the  form  it  wore  on  earth.  This  is  a  possibility, 
and  I  would  gladly  believe  it.  I  must,  I  decided,  try  to 
bring  my  poor  Jane  into  touch  with  psychic  interests;  it 
would  comfort  her  to  have  the  wonderful  chance  of  getting 
into  communication  with  Oliver.  At  present  she  scouts  the 
whole  thing,  like  all  other  forms  of  supernatural  belief. 
Jane  has  always  been  a  materialist.  It  is  very  strange  to  me 
that  my  children  have  developed,  intellectually  and  spirit- 
ually, along  such  different  lines  from  myself.  I  have  never 
been  orthodox;  I  am  not  even  now  an  orthodox  theosophist; 
I  am  not  of  the  stuff  which  can  fall  into  line  and  accept 
things  from  others;  it  seems  as  if  I  must  always  think  for 
myself,  delve  painfully,  with  blood  and  tears,  for  Truth. 
But  I  have  always  been  profoundly  religious;  the  spiritual 
side  of  life  has  always  meant  a  very  great  deal  to  me;  I 
think  I  feel  almost  too  intensely  the  vibration  of  Spirit  in  the 
world  of  things.  I  probe,  and  wonder,  and  cannot  let  it 
alone,  like  most  people,  and  be  content  with  surfaces.  Of 
late  years,  and  especially  since  I  took  up  theosophy,  I  have 
found  great  joy  and  comfort  from  my  association  with  the 
S.P.R.  I  am  in  touch  with  several  very  wonderful  thought- 
readers,  crystal-gazers,  mediums,  and  planchette  writers,  who 
have  often  strangely  illumined  the  dark  places  of  life  for 
me.  To  those  who  mock  and  doubt,  I  merely  say,  "try." 
Or  else  I  cite,  not  "Raymond"  nor  Conan  Doyle,  but  that 
strange,  interesting,  scientific  book  by  a  Belfast  professor, 
who  made  experiments  in  weighing  the  tables  before  and 
after  they  levitated,  and  weighing  the  mediums,  and  finding 


96  POTTERISM 

them  all  lighter.  I  think  that  was  it;  anyhow  it  is  all,  to 
any  open  mind,  entirely  convincing  that  something  had 
occurred  out  of  the  normal,  which  is  what  Percy  and  the 
twins  never  will  believe.  When  I  say  "try"  to  Percy,  he 
only  answers,  "I  should  fail,  my  dear.  I  may,  as  I  have 
been  called,  be  a  superman,  but  I  am  not  a  super-woman, 
and  cannot  call  up  spirits."  And  the  children  are  hopeless 
about  it,  too.  Frank  says  we  are  not  intended  to  "lift  the 
curtain"  (that  is  what  he  calls  it).  He  is  such  a  thorough 
clergyman,  and  never  had  my  imagination;  he  calls  my 
explorations  "dabbling  in  the  occult."  His  wife  jeers,  and 
asks  me  if  I've  been  talking  to  many  spooks  lately.  But 
then  her  family  are  hardheaded  business  people,  quite  dif- 
ferent from  me.  Clare  says  the  whole  thing  frightens  her 
to  death.  For  her  part  she  is  content  with  what  the  Church 
allows  of  spiritual  exploration,  which  is  not  much.  Clare, 
since  what  I  am  afraid  I  must  call  her  trouble,  has  been 
getting  much  Higher  Church;  incense  and  ritual  seem  to 
comfort  her.  I  know  the  phase;  I  went  through  it  twenty 
years  ago,  when  my  baby  Michael  died  and  the  world  seemed 
at  an  end.  But  I  came  out  the  other  side;  it  couldn't  last 
for  me,  I  had  to  have  much  more.  Clare  may  remain  con- 
tent with  it;  she  has  not  got  my,  perhaps,  too  intense 
instinct  for  groping  always  after  further  light.  And  I  am 
thankful  that  she  should  find  comfort  and  help  anywhere. 
Only  I  rather  hope  she  will  never  join  the  Roman  Church ; 
its  banks  are  too  narrow  to  hold  the  brimming  river  of  the 
human  spirit — even  my  Clare's,  which  does  not,  perhaps, 
brim  very  high,  dear,  simple  child  that  she  is. 

As  for  the  twins,  they  are  nearly  cynical  about  all  experi- 
ments with  the  supernatural.  I  often  feel  that  if  my  little 
Michael  had  lived.  .  .  .  But,  in  a  way,  I  am  thankful  to 
have  him  on  the  other  side,  reaching  his  baby  hands  across 
to  me  in  the  way  he  so  often  does. 


POTTERISM  97 

That  night  I  determined  I  would  make  a  great  effort  to 
bring  Jane  into  the  circle  of  light,  as  I  love  to  call  it.  She 
would  find  such  comfort  there,  if  only  it  could  be.  But 
I  knew  it  would  be  diffcult;  Jane  is  so  hardheaded,  and, 
for  all  her  cleverness  in  writing,  has  so  little  imagination 
really.  She  said  that  Raymond  made  her  sick.  And  she 
wouldn't  look  at  Rupert  Lives!  or  Across  the  Stream,  E.  F. 
Benson's  latest  novel  about  the  other  side.  She  quite  frankly 
doesn't  believe  there  is  another  side.  I  remember  her  saying 
to  me  once,  in  her  schoolgirl  slang,  when  she  was  seventeen 
or  so,  "Well,  I'd  like  to  think  I  went  on,  mother ;  I  think 
it's  simply  rotten  pipping  out.  I  like  being  alive,  and  I'd  like 
to  have  tons  more  of  it — but  there  it  is,  I  can't  believe  any- 
think  so  weird  and  it's  no  use  trying.  And  if  I  don't  pip 
out  after  all,  it'll  be  such  a  jolly  old  surprise  and  lark  that 
I  shall  be  glad  I  couldn't  believe  in  it  here."  Johnny,  I 
remember,  said  to  her  (those  two  were  always  ragging  each 
other),  "Ah,  you  may  be  wishing  you  only  could  pip  out, 
then.  .  .  ."  But  I  told  him  that  I  wished  he  wouldn't, 
even  in  joke,  allude  to  that  bogey  of  the  nurseries  of  my 
generation,  a  place  of  punishment.  That  terrible  old  teach- 
ing! Thank  God  we  are  outgrowing  much  of  it.  I  must 
say  that  the  descriptions  They  give,  when  They  give  any, 
of  Their  place  of  being,  do  not  sound  very  cheerful — but  it 
cannot  at  all  resemble  the  old-fashioned  place  of  torment,  it 
sounds  so  much  less  clear-cut  and  definite  than  that,  more 
like  London  in  a  yellow  fog. 


I  do  not  think  I  slept  that  night.  I  am  bad  at  sleeping 
when  I  have  had  a  shock.  My  idiotic  nerves  again.  Crane, 
in  his  book,  Right  and  Wrong  Thinking,  says  one  shouldi 
drop  discordant  thoughts  out  of  one's  mind  as  one  drops  a 


98  POTTERISM 

pebble  out  of  one's  hand.  But  my  interior  calm  is  not  yet 
sufficient  for  this  exercise,  and  I  confess  I  am  all  too 
easily  shaken  to  pieces  by  trouble,  especially  the  troubles  of 
those  I  love. 

I  felt  a  wreck  when  I  met  Percy  at  an  early  breakfast 
next  morning.  He,  too,  looked  jaded  and  strained,  and  ate 
hardly  any  breakfast,  only  a  little  Force  and  three  cups  of 
strong  tea — an  inadequate  meal,  as  I  told  him,  upon  which 
to  face  a  trying  day.  For  we  had  to  have  strength  not  only 
for  ourselves  but  for  our  children.  Giving  out:  it  is  so 
much  harder  work  than  taking  in,  and  it  is  the  work  for  us 
older  people  always. 

Percy  passed  me  the  Haste,  pointing  to  a  column  on  the 
front  page.  That  had  been  part  of  his  business  last  night, 
to  see  that  the  Haste  had  a  good  column  about  it.  The 
news  editor  had  turned  out  a  column  about  a  Bolshevik 
advance  on  the  Dvina  to  make  room  for  it,  and  it  was  side 
by  side  with  the  Rectory  Oil  Mystery,  the  German  Invasion 
(dumped  goods,  of  course),  the  Glasgow  Trades'  Union 
Congress,  the  French  Protest  about  Syria,  Woman's  Myste- 
rious Disappearance,  and  a  Tarring  and  Feathering  Court 
Martial.  The  heading  was  "Tragic  Death  of  the  Editor  of 
the  Daily  Haste,"  and  there  followed  not  only  a  full  report 
of  the  disaster,  but  an  account  of  Oliver's  career,  with  one 
of  those  newspaper  photographs  which  do  the  original  so 
little  justice. 

"Binney's  been  pretty  sharp  about  it,"  said  Percy  approv- 
inly.  "Of  course,  he  had  all  the  biographical  facts  stored." 


We  went  up  by  the  9 :24,  and  went  straight  to  Hampstead. 

Quietly  and  sadly  we  entered  that  house  of  death.     The 

maid,  all  flustered  and  red-eyed  with  emotional  unrest,  told 


POTTERISM  99 

us  that  Jane  was  upstairs,  and  Clare  too.  We  went  up  the 
narrow  stairs,  now  become  so  tragic  in  their  associations. 
On  which  step,  I  wondered,  had  he  fallen,  and  how  far? 

Jane  came  out  of  the  drawing-room  to  meet  us.  She  was 
pale,  and  looked  as  if  she  hadn't  slept,  but  composed,  as 
she  always  is.  I  took  her  in  my  arms  and  gave  her  a  long 
kiss.  Then  her  father  kissed  her,  and  smoothed  her  hair, 
and  patted  her  head  as  he  used  to  do  when  she  was  a  child, 
and  said,  "There,  there,  there,  my  poor  little  Babs.  There, 
there,  there." 

I  led  her  into  the  drawing-room.  I  felt  her  calm  was 
unnatural.  "Cry,  my  darling,"  I  said.  "Have  your  cry 
out,  and  you  will  feel  better." 

"Shall  I  ?"  she  said.  "I  don't  think  so,  mother.  Crying 
doesn't  make  me  feel  better,  ever.  It  makes  my  head  ache." 

I  thought  of  Tennyson's  young  war  widow  and  the  nurse 
of  ninety  years,  and  only  wished  it  could  have  been  six 
months  later,  so  that  I  could  have  set  Jane's  child  upon 
her  knee. 

"When  you  feel  you  can,  my  darling,"  I  said,  wiping  my 
eyes,  "you  must  tell  me  all  about  it.  But  not  before  you 
want  to." 

"There  isn't  much  to  tell,"  she  answered  quietly  still 
without  tears.  "He  fell  down  the  stairs  backwards.  That's 
all."  . 

"Did  you  .  .  .  see  him,  darling?" 

She  hesitated  a  moment,  then  said  "Yes.  I  saw  him.  I 
was  in  here.  He'd  just  come  in  from  the  office.  .  .  .  He 
lost  his  balance." 

"Would  you  feel  up,  my  dear,"  said  her  father,  "to  giving 
me  an  account  of  it,  that  I  could  put  in  the  papers?" 

"You  can  put  that  in  the  papers,  daddy.  That's  all  there 
is  to  say  about  it,  I'm  afraid.  .  .  .  I've  had  seventeen 
reporters  round  this  morning  already,  and  I  told  Emily  to 


ioo  POTTERISM 

tell  them  that.  That's  probably  another,"  she  added,  as 
the  bell  rang. 

But  it  was  not.  Emily  came  up  a  moment  later  and 
asked  if  Jane  could  see  Mr.  Gideon. 

It  showed  the  over-wrought  state  of  Jane's  nerves  that 
she  started  a  little.  She  never  starts  or  shows  surprise. 
Besides,  what  could  be  more  natural  than  that  Mr.  Gideon, 
who,  disagreeable  man  though  he  is,  is  a  close  friend  of  hers 
(far  too  close,  I  always  thought,  considering  that  Oliver  was 
on  almost  openly  bad  terms  with  him)  should  call  to 
inquire,  on  seeing  the  dreadful  news?  It  would,  all  the 
same,  I  thought,  have  been  better  taste  on  his  part  to  have 
contented  himself  with  leaving  kind  inquiries  at  the  door. 
However,  of  course,  one  would  never  expect  him  to  do  the 
right-minded  or  well-bred  thing  on  any  occasion. 

"I'll  go  down,"  Jane  said  quietly.  "Will  you  wait 
there?"  she  added  to  her  father  and  me.  "You  might," 
she  called  from  the  stairs,  "go  and  see  Clare.  She's  in 
her  room." 

I  crossed  the  passage  to  the  spare  bedroom,  and  as  I  did 
so  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  that  man's  tall,  rather  stooping 
figure  in  the  hall,  and  heard  Jane  say,  rather  low, 
"Arthur!"  and  add  quickly,  "Mother  and  dad  are  up- 
stairs. Come  in  here." 

Then  they  disappeared  into  the  dining-room,  which  was 
on  the  ground  floor,  and  shut  the  door  after  them. 


I  went  in  to  Clare.  She  was  sitting  in  an  arm-chair  by 
the  window.  When  she  turned  her  face  to  me,  I  recoiled 
in  momentary  shock.  Her  poor,  pretty  little  face  was 
pinched  and  feverishly  flushed ;  her  brown  eyes  stared  at  me 
as  if  she  was  seeing  ghosts,  Her  hands  were  locked  to- 


POTTERISM  101 

gether  on  her  knees,  and  she  was  huddled  and  shivering, 
though  it  was  a  warm  morning.  I  had  known  she  would 
feel  the  shock  terribly,  but  I  had  hardly  been  prepared  for 
this.  I  was  seriously  afraid  she  was  going  to  be  ill. 

I  knelt  down  beside  her  and  drew  her  into  my  arms, 
where  she  lay  passive,  seeming  hardly  to  realise  me. 

"My  poor  little  girl,"  I  murmured.  "Cry,  darling.  Cry, 
and  you  will  feel  better." 

Clare  was  always  more  obedient  than  Jane.  She  did  cry. 
She  broke  suddenly  into  the  most  terrible  passion  of  tears. 
I  tried  to  hold  her,  but  she  pulled  away  from  me  and  laid 
her  head  upon  her  arms  and  sobbed. 

I  stayed  beside  her  and  comforted  her  as  best  I  could, 
and  finally  went  to  Jane's  medicine  cupboard  and  mixed  her 
a  dose  of  sal  volatile. 

When  she  was  a  little  quieter,  I  said,  "Tell  me  nothing 
more  than  you  feel  inclined  to,  darling.  But  if  it  would 
make  you  happier  to  talk  to  me  about  it,  do." 

"I  c —  can't  talk  about  it,"  she  sobbed. 

"My  poor  pet!  ...  Did  it  happen  after  you  got  here, 
or  before?" 

I  felt  her  stiffen  and  grow  tense,  as  at  a  dreadful  memory. 

"After.  .  .  .  But  I  was  in  my  room;  I  wasn't  there." 

"You  heard  the  fall,  I  suppose.  .  .  ." 

She  shuddered,  and  nodded. 

"And  you  came  out.  ..."  I  helped  her  gently,  "as 
Jane  did,  and  found  him.  .  .  ." 

She  burst  out  crying  afresh.  I  almost  wished  I  had  not 
suggested  this  outlet  for  her  horror  and  grief. 

"Don't,  mother,"  she  sobbed.  "I  can't  talk  about  it — I 
can't." 

"My  pet,  of  course  you  can't,  and  you  shan't.  It  was 
thoughtless  of  me  to  think  that  speech  would  be  a  relief. 


102  POTTERISM 

Lie  down  on  your  bed,  dear,  and  have  a  good  rest,  and  you 
will  feel  better  presently." 

But  she  opposed  that  too. 

"I  can't  stay  here.  I  want  to  go  home  at  once.  At  once, 
mother." 

"My  dearest  child,  you  must  wait  for  me.  I  can't  let 
you  go  alone  in  this  state,  and  I  can't,  of  course,  go  myself 
until  Jane  is  ready  to  come  with  me." 

"I'm  going,"  she  repeated.  "I  can  go  alone.  I'm  going 
now,  at  once." 

And  she  began  feverishly  cramming  her  things  into  her 
suit-case. 

I  was  anxious  about  her,  but  I  did  not  like  to  thwart  her 
in  her  present  mood.  Then  I  heard  Frank's  voice  in  the 
drawing-room,  and  I  thought  I  would  get  him  to  accompany 
her,  at  least  to  the  station.  Frank  and  Clare  have  always 
been  fond  of  one  another,  and  she  has  a  special  reliance  on 
clergymen. 

I  went  into  the  drawing-room,  and  found  Frank  and 
Johnny  both  there,  with  Jane  and  Percy.  So  that  dreadful 
Jew  must  have  gone. 

I  told  Frank  that  Clare  was  in  a  terrible  state,  and 
entrusted  her  to  his  care.  Frank  is  a  good  unselfish  brother, 
and  he  went  to  look  after  her. 

Johnny,  silent  and  troubled,  and  looking  as  if  death  was 
out  of  his  line,  though,  heaven  knows,  he  had  seen  enough 
of  it  during  the  last  five  years,  was  fidgeting  awkwardly 
about  the  room.  His  awkwardness  was,  no  doubt,  partly 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  never  much  cared  for  Oliver. 
This  does  make  things  awkward,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Great  Silencer. 

Percy  had  to  leave  us  now,  in  order  to  go  to  the  Haste 
and  see  about  things  there.  He  said  he  would  be  back  in 
the  afternoon.  He  would,  of  course,  take  over  the  business 


POTTERISM  103 

of  making  the  last  sad  arrangements,  which  Jane  called, 
rather  crudely,  "seeing  about  the  funeral";  the  twins  would 
always  call  spades  "spades." 

Presently  I  made  the  suggestion  which  I  had  for  some 
time  had  in  my  mind. 

"May  I,  dear?"  I  asked  very  softly,  half  rising. 

Jane  rose,  too. 

"See  Oliver,  you  mean?     Oh,  yes.     He's  in  his  room." 

I  motioned  her  back.  "Not  you,  darling.  Johnny  will 
take  me." 

Johnny  didn't  want  to  much,  I  think;  it  is  the  sort  of 
strain  on  the  emotions  that  he  dislikes,  but  he  came  with  me. 

8 

What  had  been  Oliver  lay  on  the  bed,  stretched  straight 
out,  the  beautiful  face  as  white  and  delicate  as  if  modelled 
in  wax.  One  saw  no  marks  of  injury;  except  for  that 
waxy  pallor  he  might  have  been  sleeping. 

In  the  presence  of  the  Great  White  Silence  I  bowed  my 
head  and  wept.  He  was  so  beautiful,  and  had  been  so 
alive.  I  said  so  to  Johnny. 

"He  was  so  alive,"  I  said,  "so  short  a  time  ago." 

"Yes,"  Johnny  muttered,  staring  down  at  the  bed,  his 
hands  in  his  pockets.  "Yesterday,  of  course.  Rotten  bad 
luck,  poor  old  chap.  Rotten  way  to  get  pipped." 

For  a  minute  longer  I  kept  my  vigil  beside  that  inanimate 
form. 

"Peace,  peace,  he  is  not  dead,"  I  repeated  to  myself.  "He 
sleeps  whom  men  call  dead.  .  .  .  The  soul  of  Adonais, 
like  a  star,  beckons  from  the  abode  where  the  eternal  are." 
f  Death  is  wonderful  to  me ;  not  a  horrible  thing,  but  holy 
and  high.  Here  was  the  lovely  mortal  shell,  for  which 
"arrangements"  had  to  be  made;  but  the  spirit  which  had 


104  POTTERISM 

informed  it  was — where?  In  what  place,  under  what  con- 
ditions, would  Oliver  Hobart  now  fulfil  himself,  now  carry 
on  the  work  so  faithfully  begun  on  earth?  What  word 
would  he  be  able  to  send  us  from  that  Place  of  Being? 
Time  would  (I  hope)  show. 

As  we  stood  there  in  the  shadow  of  the  Great  Mystery, 
I  heard  Frank  talking  to  Clare,  whose  room  was  next  door. 

"It  was  wrong  to  give  way.  .  .  .  One  must  not  grieve 
for  the  dead  as  if  one  would  recall  them.  We  know — you 
and  I  know,  don't  we,  Clare — that  they  are  happier  where 
they  are.  And  we  know  too,  that  it  is  God's  will,  and  that 
He  decides  everything  for  the  best.  We  must  not  rebel 
against  it.  ...  If  you  really  want  to  catch  the  12  :04  to 
Potter's  Bar,  we  ought  to  start  now." 

Conventional  phraseology!  It  would  never  have  been 
adequate  for  me;  I  am  afraid  I  have  an  incurable  habit  of 
rebelling  against  the  orthodox  dogma  beloved  of  clergy,  but 
Clare  is  more  docile,  less  "tameless  and  swift  and  proud." 

I  touched  Johnny's  arm.  "Let  us  come  away,"  I  mur- 
mured. 


Clare,  her  face  beneath  her  veil  swollen  with  crying, 
went  off  with  Frank,  who  was  going  to  see  her  into  the 
train.  I,  of  course,  was  going  to  stop  with  Jane  until  the 
funeral,  as  she  called  it ;  I  would  not  leave  her  alone  in  the 
house.  So  I  asked  Frank  if  Peggy  would  go  down  to 
Potter's  Bar  and  be  with  Clare,  who  was  certainly  not  fit 
for  solitude,  poor  child,  until  my  return.  Peggy  is  a  dear, 
cheerful  girl,  if  limited,  and  she  and  Clare  have  always 
been  great  friends.  Frank  said  he  was  sure  Peggy  would 
do  this,  and  I  went  back  to  Jane,  who  was  writing  necessary 
letters  in  the  drawing-room. 

Johnny  said  to  her,  "Well,  if  you're  sure  I  can't  be  any 


POTTERISM  105 

use  just  now,  old  thing,  I  suppose  I  ought  to  go  to  the 
office,"  and  Jane  said,  "Yes,  don't  stay.  There's  nothing," 
and  he  went. 

I  offered  to  help  Jane  with  the  letters,  but  she  said  she 
could  easily  manage  them,  and  I  thought  the  occupation 
might  be  the  best  thing  for  her,  so  I  left  her  to  it  and  went 
down  to  speak  to  Emily,  Jane's  nice  little  maid.  Emily  is 
a  good  little  thing,  and  she  was  obviously  terribly,  though 
not  altogether  unpleasantly,  shocked  and  stirred  (maids  are) 
by  the  tragedy. 

She  told  me  much  more  about  the  terrible  evening  than 
Jane  or  Clare  had.  It  was  less  effort,  of  course,  for  her 
to  speak.  Indeed,  I  think  she  really  enjoyed  opening  out 
to  me.  And  I  liked  to  hear.  I  always  must  get  a  clear 
picture  of  events:  I  suppose  it  is  the  story-writer's  instinct. 

"I  went  up  to  bed,  my  lady,"  she  said,  "feeling  a  bit 
lonely  now  cook's  on  her  holiday,  soon  after  Miss  Clare 
came  in.  And  I  was  just  off  to  sleep  when  I  heard  Mrs. 
Hobart  come  in,  with  Mr.  Gideon;  they  were  talking  as 
they  came  up  to  the  drawing-room,  and  that  woke  me  up." 

"Mr.  Gideon  !"  I  exclaimed  in  surprise.    "Was  he  there?" 

"Yes,  my  lady.  He  came  in  with  Mrs.  Hobart.  I  knew 
it  was  him,  by  his  voice.  And  soon  after  the  master  came 
in,  and  they  was  all  talking  together.  And  then  I  heard 
the  mistress  come  upstairs  to  her  bedroom.  And  then  I 
dozed  off,  and  I  was  woke  by  the  fail.  .  .  .  Oh,  dear,  my 
lady,  how  I  did  scream  when  I  came  down  and  saw.  .  .  . 
There  was  the  poor  master  laying  on  the  bottom  stair, 
stunned-like,  as  I  thought,  I'm  sure  I  never  knew  he  was 
gone,  and  the  mistress  and  Miss  Clare  bending  over  him, 
and  the  mistress  calling  to  me  to  telephone  for  the  doctor. 
The  poor  mistress,  she  was  so  white,  I  thought  she'd  go 
off,  but  she  kept  up  wonderful;  and  Miss  Clare,  she  was 
worse,  all  scared  and  white,  as  if  she'd  seen  a  ghost.  I  rang 


io6  POTTERISM 

for  Dr.  Armes,  and  he  came  round  at  once,  and  I  got  hot- 
water  bottles  and  put  them  in  the  bed,  but  the  doctor 
wouldn't  move  him  for  a  bit,  he  examined  him  where  he 
lay,  and  he  found  the  back  was  broke.  He  told  the  mistress 
straight  out.  'His  back's  broke,'  he  said.  'There's  no 
hope/  he  said.  'It  may  be  a  few  hours,  or  less,'  he  said. 
Then  he  sent  for  a  mattress  and  we  laid  the  master  on  it, 
down  in  the  hall,  and  put  hot-water  bottles  to  his  feet,  and 
then  the  mistress  said  I'd  better  go  back  to  bed;  but,  oh, 
dear,  I  couldn't  do  that,  so  I  just  waited  in  the  kitchen  and 
got  a  kettle  boiling  in  case  the  mistress  and  Miss  Clare 
would  like  a  cup  of  tea,  and  I  had  a  cup  myself,  my  lady, 
for  I  was  all  of  a  didder,  and  nothing  pulls  you  round  like 
a  drop  of  hot  tea.  Then  I  took  two  cups  out  into  the  hall 
for  the  mistress  and  Miss  Clare,  and  when  I  got  there  the 
doctor  was  saying,  'It's  all  over,'  and,  dear  me,  so  it  was, 
so  I  took  the  tea  back  to  keep  it  hot  against  they  were  ready 
for  it,  for  I  couldn't  speak  to  them  of  tea  just  at  first,  could 
I,  my  lady?  Then  the  doctor  called  me,  and  there  was 
Miss  Clare  laying  in  a  fit,  and  he  was  bringing  her  round. 
He  told  me  to  help  her  to  her  room,  and  so  I  did,  and  she 
seemed  half  stunned-like,  and  didn't  say  a  word,  but  dropped 
on  her  bed  like  a  stone.  Then  I  had  to  help  the  doctor  and 
the  mistress  carry  the  poor  master  on  the  mattress  up  to  his 
room,  and  lay  him  on  his  bed;  and  the  doctor  saw  to  Miss 
Clare  a  little,  then  he  went  away  and  said  he'd  send  round 
a  woman  for  the  laying  out.  .  .  .  Poor  Miss  Clare,  I  was 
sorry  for  her.  Laid  like  a  stone,  she  did,  as  white  as  milk. 
She's  such  a  one  to  feel,  isn't  she,  my  lady?  And  to  hear  the 
fall  and  run  out  and  find  him  like  that!  The  poor  master! 
Them  stairs,  I  always  hated  them.  The  back  stairs  are  bad 
enough,  when  I  have  to  carry  the  hot  water  up  and  down, 
but  they  don't  turn  so  sharp.  The  poor  master,  he  must 
have  stumbled  backwards,  the  light  not  being  good,  and 


POTTERISM  107 

fallen  clean  over.  And  it  isn't  as  if  he  was  like  some  gentle- 
men, that  might  have  had  a  drop  at  dinner;  none  ever  saw 
the  master  the  worse,  did  they,  my  lady?  I'm  sure  cook 
and  me  and  every  one  always  thought  him  such  a  nice,  good 
gentleman.  I  don't  know  what  cook  will  say  when  she 
hears,  I'm  sure  I  don't." 

"It  is  indeed  all  very  terrible  and  sad,  Emily,"  I  said  to 
her.  I  left  her  then,  and  went  up  to  the  drawing-room. 

Jane  was  sitting  at  the  writing  table,  her  pen  in  one 
hand,  her  forehead  resting  on  the  other. 

"My  dear,"  I  said  to  her,  "Emily  has  been  giving  me 
some  account  of  last  night.  She  tells  me  that  Mr.  Gideon 
was  here." 

"She's  quite  right,"  said  Jane  listlessly.  "I  met  him  at 
Katherine's,  and  he  saw  me  home  and  came  in  for  a  little." 

I  was  silent  for  a  moment.  It  seemed  to  me  rather  sad 
that  Jane  should  have  this  memory  of  her  husband's  last 
evening  on  this  earth,  for  she  knew  that  Oliver  had  not 
liked  her  to  see  much  of  Mr.  Gideon.  I  understood  why 
she  had  been  loth  to  mention  it  to  me. 

"And  had  he  gone,"  I  asked  her  softly,  "when  ...  It 
.  .  .  happened?" 

Jane  frowned,  in  the  way  the  twins  always  frown  when 
people  put  things  less  bluntly  and  crudely  than  they  think 
fit.  For  some  reason  they  call  this,  the  regard  for  the 
ordinary  niceties  of  life,  by  the  foolish  name  of  "Potterism." 

"When  Oliver  fell?"  she  corrected  me,  still  in  that  quiet, 
listless,  almost  indifferent  tone.  "Oh,  yes.  He  wasn't  here 
long." 

"Well,  well,"  I  said  very  gently,  "we  must  let  bygones 
be  bygones,  and  not  grieve  over  much.  Grief,"  I  added, 
wanting  so  much  that  the  child  should  rise  to  the  opportunity 
and  take  her  trial  in  a  large  spirit,  "is  such  a  big,  strong, 
beautiful  thing.  If  we  let  it,  it  will  take  us  by  the  hands 


io8  POTTERISM 

and  lead  us  gently  along  by  the  waters  of  comfort.  We 
mustn't  rebel  or  fight;  we  must  look  straight  ahead  with 
welcoming  eyes.  For  whatever  life  brings  us  we  can  use" 
.  Jane  still  sat  very  still  at  the  writing  table,  her  head  on 
her  hand,  her  fingers  pushing  back  her  hair  from  her  fore- 
head. I  thought  she  sighed  a  little,  a  long  sigh  of  acqui- 
escence which  touched  me. 

This  seemed  to  me  to  be  die  moment  to  speak  to  her  of 
what  was  in  my  mind. 

"And,  my  dear,"  I  said,  "there  is  another  thing.  We 
mustn't  think  that  Oliver  has  gone  down  into  silence.  You 
must  help  him  to  speak  to  you,  a  little  later,  when  you  are 
fit  and  when  he  has  found  his  way  to  the  Door.  You 
mustn't  shut  him  out,  my  child." 

"Mother,"  said  Jane,  "you  know  I  don't  believe  in  any 
of  that." 

"I  only  ask  you  to  try,"  I  said  earnestly.  "Don't  bolt 
and  bar  the  Door.  ...  7  shall  try,  my  dear,  for  you,  if 
you  will  not,  and  he  shall  communicate  with  you  through 
me." 

"I  shan't  believe  it,"  said  Jane,  stating  not  a  resolve  but 
a  fact,  "if  he  does.  Of  course,  do  what  you  like  about  all 
that,  mother,  I  don't  care.  But,  if  you  don't  mind,  I'd 
rather  not  hear  from  it." 

I  decided  to  put  off  any  further  discussion  of  the  question, 
particularly  as  the  child  looked  and  must  have  been  tired 
out. 

I  went  down  to  the  kitchen  to  talk  to  Emily  about  Jane's 
lunch.  I  felt  that  she  ought  to  have  a  beaten  egg,  and 
perhaps  a  little  fish. 

But  I  wished  that  she  had  told  me  frankly  about  that 
man  Gideon's  visit  last  night.  Jane  was  always  so  reserved. 


CHAPTER  II 

AN   AWFUL   SUSPICION 

1 

IT  was  rather  a  strange,  sad  life  into  which  we  settled 
down  after  the  inquest  and  funeral.  Jane  remained  in 
her  little  Hampstead  house ;  she  said  she  preferred  it,  though, 
particularly  in  view  of  the  dear  little  new  life  due  in 
January  or  so,  I  wanted  her  to  be  at  Potter's  Bar  with  us. 
I  went  up  to  see  her  very  often ;  I  was  not  altogether  satis- 
fied about  her,  though  outwardly  she  went  on  much  as  of 
old,  going  to  see  her  friends,  writing,  and  not  even  wearing 
black.  But  I  am  no  stickler  for  that  heathen  custom. 

It  was,  however,  about  Clare  that  I  was  chiefly  troubled. 
The  poor  child  did  not  seem  able  to  rally  from  her  shock 
at  all.  She  crept  about  looking  miserable  and  strained, -and 
seemed  to  take  an  interest  in  nothing.  I  sent  her  away  to 
her  aunt  at  Bournemouth  for  a  change;  Bournemouth  has 
not  only  sea  air  but  ritualistic  churches  of  the  kind  she 
likes ;  but  I  do  not  think  it  did  her  much  good.  Her  affection 
for  poor  Oliver  had,  indeed,  gone  very  deep,  and  she  has  a 
very  faithful  heart. 

Percy  appointed  the  Haste's  assistant  editor  to  the  editor- 
ship; he  had  not  Oliver's  flair,  Percy  said,  but  he  did  very 
well  on  the  lines  laid  out  for  him.  There  was  a  rumour 
in  Fleet  Street  that  the  proprietors  of  the  Weekly  Fact 
meant  to  start  a  daily,  under  the  editorship  of  that  man 
Gideon,  and  that  it  would  have  for  its  special  object  a 

109 


i  io  POTTERISM 

campaign  against  our  press.  But  they  would  have  to  wait 
for  some  time,  till  the  paper  situation  was  easier.  The 
rumour  gave  Percy  no  alarm,  for  he  did  not  anticipate  a 
long  life  for  such  a  venture.  A  paper  under  such  manage- 
ment would  certainly  never,  he  said,  achieve  more  than  a 
small  circulation. 

Meanwhile,  times  were  very  troubled.  The  Labour 
people,  led  astray  by  that  bad  man,  Smillie,  were  becoming 
more  and  more  extreme  in  their  demands.  Ireland  was, 
as  always,  very  disturbed.  The  Coalition  Government — 
not  a  good  government,  but,  after  all,  better  than  any  which 
would  be  likely  to  succeed  it — was  shaking  from  one  bye- 
election  blow  after  another.  The  French  were  being  dis- 
agreeable about  Syria,  the  Italians  about  Fiume,  and  every 
one  about  the  Russian  invasion,  or  evacuation,  or  whatever 
it  was,  which  even  Percy's  press  joined  in  condemning.  And 
coal  was  exorbitant,  and  food  prices  going  up,  and  the 
reviews  of  Audrey  against  the  World  most  ignorant  and 
unfair.  I  believe  that  that  spiteful  article  of  Mr.  Gideon'? 
about  me  did  a  good  deal  of  harm  among  ignorant  and  care- 
less reviewers,  who  took  their  opinions  from  others,  without 
troubling  to  read  my  books  for  themselves.  So  many  review- 
ers are  like  that — stupid  and  prejudiced  people,  who  cannot 
think  for  themselves,  and  often  merely  try  to  be  funny  about 
a  book  instead  of  giving  it  fair  criticism.  Of  course  that 
Fact  article  was  merely  comic;  I  confess  I  laughed  at  it, 
though  I  believe  it  was  meant  to  be  taken  very  solemnly. 
But  I  was  always  like  that.  I  know  it  is  shocking  of  me, 
but  I  have  to  laugh  when  people  are  pompous  and  absurd; 
my  sense  of  the  ridiculous  is  too  strong  for  me. 

After  Oliver's  death,  I  did  not  recognise  Mr.  Gideon 
when  I  met  him,  not  in  the  least  on  personal  grounds,  but 
because  I  definitely  wished  to  discourage  his  intimacy  with 
my  family.  But  we  had  one  rather  strange  interview. 


POTTERISM  in 


I  was  going  to  see  Jane  one  afternoon,  soon  after  the 
tragedy,  and  as  I  was  emerging  from  the  tube  station  I  met 
Mr.  Gideon.  We  were  face  to  face,  so  I  had  to  bow, 
which  I  did  very  coldly,  and  I  was  surprised  when  he 
stopped  and  said,  in  that  morose  way  of  his,  "You're  going 
to  see  Jane,  aren't  you,  Lady  Pinkerton?" 

I  inclined  my  head  once  more.  The  man  stood  at  my 
side,  staring  at  the  ground  and  fidgeting,  and  biting  his 
finger-nail  in  that  disagreeable  way  he  has.  Then  he  said, 
"Lady  Pinkerton,  Jane's  unhappy." 

The  impertinence  of  the  man!  Who  was  he  to  tell  me 
that  of  my  own  daughter,  a  widow  of  a  few  weeks? 

"Naturally,"  I  replied  very  coldly.  "It  would  be  strange 
indeed  if  she  were  not." 

"Oh,  well —  '  he  made  a  queer,  jerking  movement. 
"You'll  say  it's  not  my  business.  But  please  don't  .  .  .  er 
...  let  people  worry  her — get  on  her  nerves.  It  does 
rather,  you  know.  And — and  she's  not  fit." 

"I'm  afraid,"  I  said,  putting  up  my  lorgnette,  "I  do  net 
altogether  understand  you,  Mr.  Gideon.  I  am  naturally 
acquainted  with  my  daughter's  state  better  than  any  one 
else  can  be." 

"It  gets  on  her  nerves,"  he  muttered  again.  Then, 
after  a  moment  of  silent  hesitation  he  half  shrugged  hi$ 
shoulders,  mumbled,  "Oh,  well,"  and  jerked  away. 

A  strange  person!  Amazingly  rude  and  ill-bred.  To  take 
upon  himself  to  warn  me  to  take  care  of  my  own  child-1 
And  what  did  he  mean  "got  on  her  nerves?"  I  really  began 
to  think  he  must  be  a  little  mad.  But  one  thing  was  appar- 
ent; his  feelings  towards  Jane  was,  as  I  had  long  suspected, 
much  warmer  than  was  right  in  the  circumstances.  He  had, 
I  made  no  doubt,  come  from  her  just  now. 


ii2  POTTERISM 

I  found  Jane  silent  and  unresponsive.  She  was  not 
writing  when  I  came  in,  but  sitting  doing  nothing.  She  said 
nothing  to  me  about  Mr.  Gideon's  call,  till  I  mentioned 
him  myself.  Then  she  seemed  to  stiffen  a  little;  I  saw  her 
hands  clench  over  the  arms  of  her  chair. 

"His  manner  was  very  strange,"  I  said.  "I  couldn't 
help  wondering  if  he  had  been  having  anything." 

"If  he  was  drunk,  you  mean,"  said  Jane.    "I  dare  say." 

"Then  he  does!"  I  cried,  a  little  surprised. 

Jane  said  not  that  she  knew  of.  But  every  one  did 
sometimes.  Which  was  just  the  disagreeable,  cynical  way 
of  talking  that  I  regret  in  her  and  Johnny.  As  if  she  did 
not  know  numbers  of  straight,  clean-living,  decent  men  and 
women  who  never  had  too  much  in  their  lives.  But,  any- 
how, it  convinced  me  that  Mr.  Gideon  did  drink  too  much, 
and  that  she  knew  it. 

"He  had  been  here,  I  suppose,"  I  said  gently,  because  I 
didn't  want  to  seem  stern. 

"Yes,"  said  Jane,  and  that  was  all. 

"My  dear,"  I  said,  after  a  moment,  laying  my  hand  on 
hers,  "is  this  man  worrying  you  .  .  .  with  attentions?" 

Jane  laughed,  an  odd  hard  laugh  that  I  didn't  like. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said.     "Oh,  deal  no,  mother." 

She  got  up  and  began  to  walk  about  the  room. 

"Never  mind  Arthur,"  she  said.  "I  wouldn't  let  him 
get  on  my  mind  if  I  were  you,  mother.  .  .  .  Let's  talk 
about  something  else — baby,  if  you  like." 

I  perceived  from  this  that  Jane  was  really  anxious  to  avoid 
discussion  of  this  man,  for  she  did  not  as  a  rule  encourage 
me  to  talk  to  her  about  the  little  life  which  was  coming, 
as  we  hoped,  next  spring.  So  I  turned  from  the  subject  of 
Arthur  Gideon.  But  it  remained  on  my  mind. 


POTTERISM  113 


You  know  how,  sometimes,  one  wakes  suddenly  in  the  \ 
night  with  an  extraordinary  access  of  clearness  of  vision,  so 
that  a  dozen  small  things  which  have  occurred  during  the 
day  and  passed  without  making  much  apparent  impression 
on  one's  mind  stand  out  sharp  and  defined  in  a  row,  like 
a  troop  of  soldiers  with  fixed  bayonets  all  pointing  in  one  ( 
direction.     You  look  where  they  are  pointing — and  behold,  / 
you  see  some  new  fact  which  you  never  saw  before,  and    ; 
you  cannot  imagine  how  you  came  to  have  missed  it. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  I  woke  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
after  I  had  met  Arthur  Gideon  in  Hampstead.  All  in  a 
row  the  facts  stood,  pointing. 

Mr.  Gideon  had  been  in  the  house  only  a  few  minutes 
before  Oliver  was  killed. 

He  and  Oliver  hated  each  other  privately,  and  had 
been  openly  quarrelling  in  the  press  for  some  time. 

He  had  an  intimacy  with  Jane  which  Oliver  disliked. 

Oliver  must  have  been  displeased  at  his  coming  home 
that  evening  with  Jane. 

Gideon  drank. 

Gideon  now  had  something  on  his  mind  which  made  him 
even  more  peculiar  than  usual. 

Jane  had  been  very  strange  and  secretive  about  his  visit 
there  on  the  fatal  evening. 

He  and  Oliver  had  probably  quarrelled. 

Only  Jane  had  seen  Oliver  fall. 

•  ••••••• 

Had  she? 

•        ••••••• 

HOW  HAD  THAT  QUAKREL  ENDED? 

This  awful  question  shot  into  my  mind  like  an  arrow, 
and  I  sat  straight  up  in  bed  with  a  start. 


ii4  POTTERISM 

How,  indeed? 

I  shuddered,  but  unflinchingly  faced  an  awful  possibility. 

If,  indeed,  it  were  so,  it  was  my  duty  to  leave  no  stone 
unturned  to  discover  and  expose  the  awful  truth.  Painful 
as  it  would  be,  I  must  not  shrink. 

A  second  terrible  question  came  to  me.  If  my  suspicion 
were  correct,  how  much  did  Jane  know  or  guess?  Jane  had 
been  most  strange  and  reserved.  I  remembered  how  she  had 
run  down  to  meet  the  wretched  man  that  first  morning, 
when  we  were  there ;  I  remembered  her  voice,  rather  hurried, 
saying,  "Arthur!  Mother  and  dad  are  upstairs.  Come  in 
here,"  and  how  she  took  him  into  the  dining-room  alone. 

Did  Jane  know  all  ?  Or  did  she  only  suspect  ?  I  could 
scarcely  believe  that  she  would  wish  to  shield  her  husband's 
murderer,  if  he  were  that.  Yet  .  .  .  why  had  she  told  me 
that  she  had  seen  the  accident  herself?  If,  indeed,  my 
terrible  suspicion  were  justified,  and  if  Jane  was  in  the 
secret,  it  seemed  to  point  to  a  graver  condition  of  things 
than  I  had  supposed.  No  girl  would  lie  to  shield  her  hus- 
band's murderer  unless  .  .  .  unless  she  was  much  fonder 
of  him  than  a  married  woman  has  any  right  to  be. 

I  resolved  quickly,  as  I  always  do.  First,  I  must  save 
my  child  from  this  awful  man. 

Secondly,  I  must  discover  the  truth  as  expeditiously  as 
possible,  shrinking  from  no  means. 

Thirdly,  if  I  discovered  the  worst,  and  it  had  to  be 
exposed,  I  must  see  that  Jane's  name  was  kept  entirely  out 
of  it.  The  journalistic  squabble  and  mutual  antipathy  of 
the  two  men  would  be  all  that  would  be  necessary  to  account 
for  their  quarrel,  together  with  Gideon's  probably  intoxi- 
cated state  that  evening. 

I  heard  Percy  moving  downstairs  still,  and  I  nearly  went 
down  to  him  to  communicate  my  suspicions  to  him  at  once. 
But,  on  second  thoughts,  I  refrained.  Percy  was  worried 


POTTERISM  115 

with  a  great  many  things  just  now.  Besides,  he  might  only 
laugh  at  me.  I  would  wait  until  I  had  thought  it  over  and 
had  rather  more  to  go  on.  Then  I  would  tell  him,  and 
he  should  make  what  use  he  liked  of  it  in  the  papers.  How 
interested  he  would  be  if  the  man  who  was  one  of  his 
bitterest  journalistic  foes,  who  fought  so  venomously  every- 
thing that  he  and  his  press  stood  for,  and  who  was  the 
editor-designate  of  the  possible  new  anti-Pinkerton  daily, 
should  be  proved  to  be  the  murderer  of  his  son-in-law.  What 
a  scoop!  The  vulgar  journalese  slang  slid  into  my  mind 
strangely,  as  light  words  will  in  grave  moments. 

But  I  pulled  myself  together.  I  was  going  too  far  ahead. 
After  all,  I  was  still  merely  in  the  realms  of  fancy  and 
suspicion.  It  is  true  that  I  have  queer,  almost  uncanny 
intuitive  powers,  which  have  seldom  failed  me.  But  still, 
I  had  as  yet  little  to  go  on. 

With  an  effort  of  will,  I  put  the  matter  out  of  my  mind 
and  tried  to  sleep.  Counsel  would,  I  felt  sure,  come  in 
the  morning. 


It  did.  I  woke  with  the  words  ringing  in  my  head-  as  if 
some  one  had  spoken  them — "Why  not  consult  Amy  Ay  res?" 

Of  course!  That  was  the  very  thing.  I  would  go  that 
afternoon. 

Amy  Ayres  had  been  a  friend  of  mine  from  girlhood. 
We  had  always  been  in  the  closest  sympathy,  although  our 
paths  had  diverged  greatly  since  we  were  young.  We  had 
written  our  first  stories  together  for  Forget-me-not  and 
Hearth  and  Home,  and  together  enjoyed  the  first  sweets  of 
success.  But,  while  I  had  pursued  the  literary  path,  Amy 
had  not.  Her  interests  had  turned  more  and  more  to  the 
occult.  She  had  fallen  in  with,  and  greatly  admired  Mrs. 
Besant.  When  her  husband  (a  Swedenborgian  minister) 


ii6  POTTERISM 

left  her  at  the  call  of  his  conscience  to  convert  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Peru  to  Swedenborgianism,  and  finally  lost  his  life 
in  the  vain  attempt,  under  peculiarly  painful  circumstances, 
Amy  turned  for  relief  to  spiritualism,  which  was  just  then 
at  its  zenith  of  popularity.  At  first  she  practised  it  privately 
and  unofficially,  with  a  few  chosen  friends,  for  it  was  some- 
thing very  sacred  to  her.  But  gradually,  as  she  came  to 
discover  in  herself  wonderful  powers  of  divination  and 
spiritual  receptivity,  and  being  very  poor  at  the  time,  she 
took  it  up  as  a  calling.  She  is  the  most  wonderful  palm- 
reader  and  crystal-gazer  I  have  come  across.  I  have  brought 
people  to  her  of  whom  she  has  known  nothing  at  all,  and 
she  has,  after  close  study  and  brief,  earnest  prayer,  read  in 
their  hands  their  whole  temperament,  present  circumstances, 
past  history,  and  future  destiny.  I  have  often  tried  to  per- 
suade Percy  to  go  to  her,  for  I  think  it  would  convince  him 
of  that  vast  world  of  spiritual  experience  which  lies  about 
him,  and  to  which  he  is  so  blind.  If  I  have  to  pass  on 
before  Percy,  he  will  be  left  bereaved  indeed,  unless  I  can 
convince  him  of  Truth  first. 


I  went  to  see  Amy  in  her  little  Maid  of  Honour  house 
in  Kensington  that  very  afternoon. 

I  found  her  reading  Madame  Blavatski  (that  strange 
woman)  in  her  little  drawing-room. 

Amy  has  not  worn,  perhaps,  quite  so  well  as  I  have.  She 
has  to  make  up  a  little  too  thickly.  I  sometimes  wish  she 
would  put  less  black  round  her  eyes;  it  gives  her  a  stagey 
look,  which  I  think  in  her  particular  profession  it  is  most 
important  not  to  have,  as  people  are  in  any  case  so  inclined 
to  doubt  the  genuineness  of  those  who  deal  in  the  occult. 
Besides,  what  an  odd  practice  that  painting  the  face  black 


POTTERISM  117 

in  patches  is!  As  unlike  real  life  as  a  clown's  red  nose, 
thougn  I  suppose  less  becoming.  I  myself  only  use  a  little 
powder,  which  is  so  necessary  in  hot,  or,  indeed,  cold  weather. 

However,  this  is  a  digression.  I  kissed  Amy,  and  said, 
"My  dear,  I  am  here  on  business  to-day.  I  am  in  great 
perplexity,  and  I  want  you  to  discover  something  from  the 
crystal.  Are  you  in  the  mood  this  afternoon?"  For  I 
have  enough  of  the  temperament  myself  to  know  that  crystal- 
gazing,  even  more  than  literary  composition,  must  wait  on 
mood.  Fortunately,  Amy  said  she  was  in  a  most  favourable 
condition  for  vision,  and  I  told  her  briefly  as  possible  that 
I  wished  to  learn  about  the  circumstances  attendant  on  the 
death  of  Oliver  Hobart.  I  wished  her  to  visualise  Oliver 
as  he  stood  that  evening  at  the  top  of  those  dreadful  stairs, 
and  to  watch  the  manner  of  his  fall.  I  told  her  no  more, 
for  I  wanted  her  to  approach  the  subject  without  prejudice. 

Without  more  ado,  we  went  into  the  room  which  Amy 
called  her  Temple  of  Vision  and  Amy  got  to  work. 


travelling  by  the  6:28  back  to  Potter's  Bar.  I  lay 
back  in  my  corner  with  closed  eyes,  recalling  the  events  of 
that  wonderful  afternoon  in  the  darkened,  scented  room.  It 
had  been  a  strange,  almost  overwhelming  experience.  I  had 
been  keyed  up  to  a  point  of  tension  which  was  almost 
unendurable,  while  my  friend  gazed  and  murmured  into 
the  glass  ball.  These  glimpses  into  the  occult  are  really  too 
much  for  my  system;  they  wring  my  nerves.  I  could  have 
screamed  when  Amy  said,  "Wait — wait — the  darkness  stirs. 
I  see — I  see — a  fair  man,  with  the  face  of  a  Greek  god." 
"Is  he  alone?"  I  whispered. 

"He  is  not  alone.    He  is  talking  to  a  tall  dark  man." 
"Yes — yes?"    I  bent  forward  eagerly,  as  she  paused  and 


ii8  POTTERISM 

seemed  to  brood  over  the  clear  depths  where,  as  I  knew, 
she  saw  shadows  forming  and  reforming. 

"They  talk,"  she  murmured.     "They  talk." 

(Knowing  that  she  could  not,  unfortunately,  hear  what 
they  said,  I  did  not  ask.) 

"They  are  excited.  .  .  .  They  are  quarrelling.  .  .  .  Oh, 
God !"  She  hid  her  eyes'  for  a  moment,  then  looked  again. 

"The  dark  man  strikes  the  fair  man.  .  .  .  He  is  taken  by 
surprise;  he  steps  backward  and  falls  .  .  .  falls  backwards 
.  .  .  down  .  .  .  out  of  my  vision.  .  .  .  The  dark  man  is 
left  standing  alone.  .  .  .  He  is  fading  ...  he  is  gone. 
...  I  can  see  him  no  more.  .  .  .  Lelia,  I  have  come  to  an 
end;  I  am  overdone;  I  must  rest." 

She  had  fallen  back  with  closed  eyes. 

A  little  later,  when  she  had  revived,  we  had  tea  together, 
and  I  put  a  few  questions  to  her.  She  had  told  me  little 
more  than  what  she  had  revealed  as  she  gazed  into  the 
crystal.  But  it  was  enough.  She  knew  the  fair  man  for 
Oliver,  for  she  had  seen  him  at  the  wedding.  She  had  not 
seen  the  dark  man's  face,  nor  had  she  ever  met  Arthur 
Gideon,  but  her  description  of  him  was  enough  for  me. 

I  had  left  the  house  morally  certain  that  Arthur  Gideon 
had  murdered  (or  anyhow  manslaughtered)  Oliver  Hobart. 


I  told  Percy  that  evening,  after  Clare  had  gone  to  bed. 
I  had  confidence  in  Percy:  he  would  believe  me.  His  jour- 
nalistic instinct  for  the  truth  could  be  counted  on.  He  never 
waived  things  aside  as  improbable,  for  he  knew,  as  I  knew, 
how  stranger  truth  may  be  than  fiction.  He  heard  me  out, 
nodding  his  head  sharply  from  time  to  time  to  show  that 
he  followed  me. 

When  I  had  done,  he  said,  "You  were  right  to  tell  me. 


POTTERISM  119 

We  must  look  into  it.  It  will,  if  proved  true,  make  a  most 
remarkable  story.  Most  sensational  and  remarkable."  He 
turned  it  over  in  that  acute,  quick  brain  of  his. 

"We  must  go  carefully,"  he  said.  "Remember  we  haven't 
much  to  go  on  yet." 

He  didn't  believe  in  the  crystal-gazing,  of  course,  so  had 
less  to  go  on  than  I  had.  All  he  saw  was  the  inherent 
possibility  of  the  story  (knowing,  as  he  did,  the  hatred  that 
had  existed  between  the  two  men)  and  the  damning  fact  of 
Gideon's  presence  at  the  house  that  evening. 

"We  must  be  careful,"  he  repeated.  "Careful,  for  one 
thing,  not  to  start  talk  about  the  fellow's  friendship  with 
Jane.  We  must  keep  Jane  out  of  it  all." 

On  that  we  were  agreed. 

"I  think  we  must  ask  Clare  a  few  questions,"  said  Percy. 

He  did  so  next  day,  without  mentioning  our  suspicion. 
But  Clare  could  scarcely  bear  to  speak  of  that  terrible  eve- 
ning, poor  chiM,  and  returned  incoherent  answers.  She 
knew  Mr.  Gideon  had  been  in  the  house,  but  didn't  know 
what  time  he  had  gone,  nor  the  exact  time  of  the  accident. 

I  resolv  d  to  question  Emily,  Jane's  little  maid,  more 
closely,  an  ^  did  so  when  I  went  there  that  afternoon.  She 
was  certa'.ily  more  circumstantial  than  she  had  been  when 
she  had  told  me  the  story  before,  in  the  first  shock  and 
confusion  of  the  disaster.  I  gathered  from  her  that  she 
had  heard  her  master  and  Mr.  Gideon  talking  immediately 
before  the  fall;  she  had  been  surprised  when  her  mistress 
had  said  that  Mr.  Gideon  had  left  the  house  before  the  fall. 
She  thought,  from  the  sounds,  that  he  must  have  left  the 
house  immediately  afterwards. 

"It  is  possible,"  I  said,  "that  Mrs.  Hobart  did  not  know 
precisely  when  Mr.  Gideon  left  the  house.  It  was  all  very 
confusing." 


120  POTTERISM 

"Oh,  my  lady,  indeed  it  was,"  Emily  agreed.  "I'm  sure 
I  hope  I  shall  never  have  such  a  night  again." 

I  said  nothing  to  Jane  of  my  suspicion.  If  I  was  right 
in  thinking  that  the  poor  misguided  child  was  shielding  her 
husband's  murderer,  from  whatever  motives  of  pity  or  friend- 
ship, the  less  said  to  disturb  her  the  better,  till  we  were  sure 
of  our  ground. 

But  I  talked  to  a  few  other  people  about  it,  on  whose 
discretion  I  could  rely.  I  tried  to  find  out,  and  so  did 
Percy,  what  was  the  man's  record.  What  transpired  of  it 
was  not  reassuring.  His  father  was,  as  we  knew  before,  a 
naturalised  Russian  Jew,  presumably  of  the  lowest  class  in 
his  own  land,  though  well  educated  from  childhood  in  this 
country.  He  was,  as  every  one  knew,  a  big  banker,  and 
mixed  up,  no  doubt,  with  all  sorts  of  shady  finance.  Some 
people  said  he  was  probably  helping  to  finance  the  Bol- 
sheviks. His  daughter  had  married  a  Russian  Jewish  artist. 
Jane  knew  this  artist  and  his  wife  well,  at  that  silly  club 
of  hers.  Arthur  Gideon,  on  coming  of  age,  had  reverted  to 
his  patronymic  name,  enamoured,  it  seemed,  of  his  origin. 
He  had,  of  course,  to  fight  in  the  war,  loth  though  he  no 
doubt  was.  But  directly  it  was  over,  or  rather  directly  he 
was  discharged  wounded,  he  took  to  shady  journalism. 

Hardly  a  reassuring  record!  Add  to  it  the  ill-starred 
influence  he  had  always  attempted  to  exert  ove'r  Johnny  and 
Jane  (he  had,  even  in  Oxford  days,  brought  out  their  worst 
side)  his  quarrels  with  Oliver  in  the  press,  his  unconcealed 
hatred  of  what  he  was  pleased  to  call  "Potterism"  (he  was 
president  of  the  foolish  so-called  "Anti-Potter  League"),  his 
determined  intimacy  with  Jane  against  her  husband's  wishes, 
and  Jane's  own  implication  that  he  at  times  drank  too  much 
— and  you  had  a  picture  of  a  man  unlikely  to  inspire  con- 
fidence in  any  impartial  mind. 

Anyhow,  most  of  the  people  to  whom  I  broached  the 


POTTERISM  121 

unpleasant  subject  (and  I  saw  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
speak  freely  of  my  suspicion)  seemed  to  think  the  man's 
guilt  only  too  likely. 

Some  of  my  friends  said  to  me,  "Why  not  bring  a  charge 
against  him  and  have  him  arrested  and  the  matter  thoroughly 
investigated?"  But  Percy  told  me  we  had  not  enough  to 
go  on  for  that  yet.  All  he  would  do  was  to  put  the  investi- 
gation into  the  hands  of  a  detective,  and  entrust  him  with 
the  business  of  collecting  evidence. 

The  only  people  we  kept  the  matter  from  were  our  two 
daughters.  Clare  would  have  been  too  dreadfully  upset  by 
this  raking  up  of  the  tragedy,  and  Jane  could  not,  in  her 
present  state,  be  disturbed  either. 

8 

About  three  weeks  after  my  visit  to  Amy  Ayres,  I  had 
rather  a  trying  meeting  with  that  young  clergyman,  Mr. 
Juke,  another  of  the  children's  rather  queer  Oxford  friends. 
He  is  the  son  of  that  bad  old  Lord  Aylesbury,  who  married 
some  dreadful  chorus  girl  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  all  his 
family  are  terribly  fast.  We  met  at  a  bazaar  for  starving 
clergy  at  the  dear  Bishop  of  London's,  to  which  I  had  gone 
with  Frank.  I  think  the  clergy  very  wrong  about  many 
things,  but  I  quite  agree  that  we  cannot  let  them  starve. 
Besides,  Peggy  had  a  stall  for  home-made  jam. 

I  was  buying  some  Armenian  doyleys,  with  Clare  at  my 
side,  when  a  voice  said,  "Can  I  speak  to  you  for  a  moment, 
Lady  Pinkerton?"  and,  turning  round,  Mr.  Juke  stood 
close  to  us. 

I  was  surprised,  for  I  knew  him  very  little,  but  I  said, 
"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Juke.  By  all  means.  We  will  go 
and  sit  over  there,  by  the  missionary  bookstall."  (This  was, 


122  POTTERISM 

as  it  sometimes  is,  the  least  frequented  stall,  so  it  was  suit- 
able for  quiet  conversation). 

We  left  Clare,  and  went  to  the  bookstall.  When  we  were 
seated  in  two  chairs  near  it,  Mr.  Juke  leant  forwards,  his 
elbows  on  his  knees,  and  said  in  a  low  voice,  "I  came  here 
to-day  hoping  to  meet  you,  Lady  Pinkerton.  I  wanted  to 
speak  to  you.  It's  about  my  friend,  Gideon.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,"  I  helped  him  out,  my  interest  rising.  Had  he 
anything  to  communicate  to  me  on  that  subject? 

The  young  man  went  on,  staring  at  the  ground  between 
his  knees,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  his  profile  was  very 
like  Granville  Barker's.  "I  am  told,"  he  said,  in  grave 
quick,  low  tones,  "that  you  are  saying  things  about  him 
rather  indiscriminately.  Bringing,  in  fact,  charges  against 
him — suspicions,  rather.  ...  I  hardly  think  you  can  be 
aware  of  the  seriousness  of  such  irresponsible  gossip,  such — 
I  can't  call  it  anything  but  slander — when  it  is  widely  cir- 
culated. How  it  grows — spreads  from  person  to  person — • 
the  damage,  the  irreparable  damage  it  may  do.  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off  incoherently,  and  was  silent.  I  confess  I 
was  taken  aback.  But  I  stood  to  my  guns. 

"And,"  I  said,  "if  the  irresponsible  gossip,  as  you  call  it, 
happens  to  be  true,  Mr.  Juke?  What  then?" 

"Then,"  he  said  abruptly,  and  looked  me  in  the  face, 
"then,  Lady  Pinkerton,  Gideon  should  be  called  on  to  answer 
to  the  charge  in  a  court  of  law,  not  libelled  behind  his 
back." 

"That,"  I  said,  "will,  I  hope,  Mr.  Juke,  happen  at  the 
proper  time.  Meanwhile,  I  must  ask  to  be  allowed  to 
follow  my  own  methods  of  investigation  in  my  own  way. 
Perhaps  you  forget  that  the  matter  concerns  the  tragic  death 
of  my  very  dear  son-in-law.  I  cannot  be  expected  to  let 
things  rest  where  they  are." 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  rising  as  I  rose,  "that  you  can't." 


POTTERISM  123 

"And,"  I  added,  as  a  parting  shot,  "it  is  always  open  to 
Mr.  Gideon  to  bring  a  libel  action  against  any  one  who 
falsely  and  publicly  accuses  him — //  he  likes" 

"Yes,"  assented  the  young  man. 

I  left  him  standing  there,  and  turned  away  to  speak  to 
Mrs.  Creighton,  who  was  passing. 

I  considered  that  Mr.  Juke  had  been  quite  in  his  rights  to 
speak  to  me  as  he  had  done,  and  I  was  not  offended.  But 
I  must  say  I  think  I  had  the  best  of  the  interview.  And  it 
left  me  with  the  strong  impression  that  he  knew  as  well  as 
I  did  that  "his  friend  Gideon"  would  in  no  circumstances 
venture  to  bring  a  libel  action  against  any  one  in  this 
matter. 

I  believed  that  the  young  clergyman  suspected  his  friend 
himself,  and  was  trying  in  vain  to  avert  from  him  the 
nemesis  that  his  crime  deserved. 

Clare  said  to  me  when  I  rejoined  her.  "What  did  Mr. 
Juke  want  to  speak  to  you  about,  mother?" 

"Nothing  of  any  importance,  dear,"  I  told  her. 

She  looked  at  me  in  the  rather  strange,  troubled,  frowning 
way  she  has  now  sometimes. 

"Oh,  do  let's  go  home,  mother,"  she  said  suddenly.  "I'm 
so  tired.  And  I  don't  believe  they're  really  starving  a  Bit, 
and  I  don't  care  if  they  are.  I  do  hate  bazaars.1' 

Clare  used  once  to  be  quite  fond  of  them.  But  she  seemed 
to  hate  so  many  things  now,  poor  child. 

I  took  her  home,  and  that  evening  I  told  Percy  about  my 
interview  with  Mr.  Juke. 

"A  libel  action,"  said  Percy,  "would  be  excellent.  The 
Very  thing.  But  if  he's  guilty,  he  won't  bring  one." 

"Anyhow,"  I  said,  "I  feel  it  is  our  duty  not  to  let  the 
affair  drop.  We  owe  it  to  poor  dear  Oliver.  Even  now  he 
may  be  looking  down  on  us,  unable  to  rest  in  perfect  peace 
till  he  is  avenged." 


124  POTTERISM 

"He  may,  he  may,  my  dear,"  said  Percy,  nodding  his 
head.  "Never  know,  do  you.  Never  know  anything  at 
all.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  he  may  have  lost  his  own 
balance,  as  they  decided  at  the  inquest,  and  tumbled  down- 
stairs on  to  his  head.  Nasty  stairs;  very  nasty  stairs.  Any- 
how, if  Gideon  didn't  shove  him,  he's  nothing  to  be  afraid  of 
in  our  talk,  and  if  he  did  he'll  have  to  face  the  music. 
Troublesome  fellow,  anyhow.  That  paper  of  his  gets  worse 
every  week.  It  ought  to  be  muzzled." 

I  couldn't  help  wondering  how  it  would  affect  the  Weekly 
Fact  if  its  editor  were  to  be  arrested  on  a  charge  of  wilful 
murder. 


PART  IV 
TOLD  BY  KATHERINE  VARICK 

CHAPTER  I 

A  BRANCH   OF   STUDY 
1 

TJEOPLE  are  very  odd,  unreliable,  and  irregular  in  their 
•••  actions  and  reactions.  You  can't  count  on  them  as  you 
can  on  chemicals.  I  suppose  that  merely  means  that  one 
doesn't  know  them  so  well.  They  are  far  harder  to  know ; 
there  is  a  queer  element  of  muddle  about  them  that  baffles 
one.  You  never  know  when  greediness — the  main  element 
in  most  of  us — will  stop  working,  checked  by  something  else, 
some  finer,  quite  different  motive  force.  And  then  checking 
that  again,  comes  strong  emotion,  such  as  love  or  hate,  over- 
throwing everything  and  making  chaos.  Of  course,  you  may 
say  these  interacting  forces  are  all  elements  that  should  be 
known  and  reckoned  with  beforehand,  and  it  is  quite  true. 
That  is  just  the  trouble:  one  doesn't  know  enough. 

Though  I  don't  study  human  nature  with  the  absorption 
of  Laurence  Juke  (after  all,  it's  his  trade),  I  find  it  interest- 
ing, like  other  curious  branches  of  study.  And  the  more 
complex  and  unreliable  it  is,  so  much  the  more  interesting. 
I'm  much  more  interested,  for  instance,  in  Arthur  Gideon, 
who  is  surprising  and  incalculable,  than  in  Jane  and  Johnny 

I2S 


126  POTTERISM 

Potter,  who  are  pushed  along  almost  entirely  by  one  motive 
— greed.  I'm  even  less  interested  in  Jane  and  Johnny  than 
in  the  rest  of  their  family,  who  are  the  usual  British  mix- 
ture of  humbug,  sentimentality,  commercialism,  and  genuine 
feeling.  They  represent  Potterism,  and  Potterism  is  a 
wonderful  thing.  The  twins  are  far  too  clear-headed  to  be 
Potterites.  You  really  can,  on  almost  any  occasion,  say  how 
they  will  act.  So  they  are  rather  dull,  as  a  study,  though 
amusing  enough  as  companions. 

But  Arthur  Gideon  is  full  of  twists  and  turns  and  sur- 
prises. He  is  one  of  those  rare  people  who  can  really  throw 
their  whole  selves  into  a  cause — lose  themselves  for  it  and 
not  care.  (Jukie  says  that's  Christian:  I  dare  say  it  is: 
it  is  certainly  seldom  enough  found  in  the  world,  and  that 
seems  to  be  an  essential  quality  of  all  the  so-called  Christian 
virtues,  as  far  as  one  can  see). 

Anyhow,  Arthur's  passion  for  truth,  his  passion  for  the 
first-rate,  and  his  distaste  for  untruth  and  for  the  second- 
rate,  seemed  to  be  the  supreme  motive  forces  in  him,  all  the 
years  I  have  known  him,  until  just  lately. 

And  then  something  else  came  in,  apparently  stronger  than 
these  forces. 

Of  course  I  knew  a  long  time  ago — certainly  since  he  left 
the  army — that  he  was  in  love  with  Jane.  I  knew  it  long 
before  he  did.  It  was  a  queer  feeling,  for  it  went  on,  appar- 
ently, side  by  side  with  impatience  and  scorn  of  her.  And 
it  grew  and  grew.  Jane's  marriage  made  it  worse.  She 
worked  for  him,  and  they  met  constantly.  And  at  last  it 
got  so  that  we  all  saw  it. 

And  all  the  time  he  didn't  like  her,  because  she  was 
second-rate  and  commercial,  and  he  was  first-rate  and  an 
artist — an  artist  in  the  sense  that  he  loved  things  for  what 
they  were,  not  for  what  he  could  get  out  of  them.  Jane  was 
always  thinking,  "How  can  I  use  this?  What  can  I  get 


POTTERISM  127 

out  of  it?"  She  thought  it  about  the  war.  So  did  Johnny. 
She  has  always  thought  it,  about  everything.  It  isn't  in  her 
not  to.  And  Arthur  knew  it,  but  didn't  care;  anyhow  he 
loved  her  all  the  same.  It  was  as  if  his  reason  and  judg- 
ment were  bowled  over  by  her  charm  and  couldn't  help 
him. 


The  evening  after  Oliver  Hobart's  death,  Arthur  came  in 
to  see  me,  about  nine  o'clock.  He  looked  extraordinarily 
ill  and  strained,  and  was  even  more  restless  and  jerky  than 
usual.  He  looked  as  if  he  hadn't  slept  at  all. 

I  was  testing  some  calculations,  and  he  sat  on  the  sofa 
and  smoked.  When  I  had  finished,  he  said,  "Katherine, 
what's  your  view  of  this  business?" 

Of  course,  I  knew  he  meant  Oliver  Hobart's  death,  and 
how  it  would  affect  Jane.  One  says  exactly  what  one 
thinks,  to  Arthur.  So  I  said,  "It's  a  good  thing,  ultimately, 
for  Jane.  They  didn't  suit.  I'm  clear  it's  a  good  thing  in 
the  end.  Aren't  you?" 

He  made  a  sharp  movement,  and  pushed  back  his  hair 
from  his  forehead. 

"I?     I'm  clear  of  nothing." 

He  added,  after  a  moment,  "Is  that  the  way  she  looks 
at  it,  do  you  suppose?" 

"I  do,"  I  said. 

He  half  winced. 

"Then  why — why  the  devil  did  she  marry  the  poor 
chap?" 

There  was  an  odd  sort  of  appeal  in  his  voice;  appeal 
against  the  cruelty  of  fate,  perhaps,  or  the  perverseness  of 
Jane. 

I  told  him  what  I  thought,  as  clearly  as  I  could. 

"She  got  carried  away  by  the  excitement  of  her  life  in 


128  POTTERISM 

Paris,  and  he  was  all  mixed  up  with  that.  I  think  she  felt 
she  would,  in  a  way,  be  carrying  on  the  excitement  and  the 
life  if  she  married  him.  And  she  was  knocked  over  by  his 
beauty.  Then,  when  the  haze  of  glamour  had  cleared  away, 
and  she  was  left  face  to  face  with  him  as  a  life  companion, 
she  found  she  couldn't  do  with  him  after  all.  He  bored  her 
and  annoyed  her  more  and  more.  I  don't  know  how  long 
she  could  have  gone  on  with  it;  she  never  said  anything  to 
me  about  it.  But,  now  this  has  happened,  what  might  have 
become  a  great  difficulty  is  solved." 

"Solved,"  he  repeated,  in  a  curious,  dead  voice,  staring  at 
the  floor.  "I  suppose  it  is." 

He  was  silent  for  quite  five  minutes,  sitting  quite  still, 
with  his  black  eyes  absent  and  vacant,  as  if  he  was  very 
tired.  I  knew  he  was  trying  to  think  out  some  problem, 
and  I  supposed  I  knew  what  it  was.  But  I  couldn't  account 
then  for  his  extreme  unhappiness. 

At  last  he  said,  "Katherine.  This  is  a  mess.  I  can't  tell 
you  about  it,  but  it  is  a  mess.  Jane  and  I  are  in  a  mess. 
.  .  .  Oh,  you've  guessed,  haven't  you,  about  Jane  and  me? 
Juke  guessed." 

"Yes.  I  guessed  that  before  Jukie  did.  Before  you  did, 
as  a  matter  of  fact." 

"You  did?"  But  he  wasn't  much  interested.  "Then  you 
see  .  .  ." 

"Not  altogether,  Arthur.  I  can't  see  it's  a  mess,  exactly. 
A  shock,  of  course  .  .  ." 

He  looked  at  me  for  a  moment,  as  if  he  were  adjusting 
his  point  of  view  to  mine. 

"Well,  no.  You  wouldn't  see  it,  of  course.  But  there's 
more  to  this  than  you  know — much  more.  Anyhow,  please 
take  my  word  for  it  that  it  is  a  mess.  A  ghastly  mess." 

I  took  his  word  for  it.    As  there  didn't  seem  to  be  any 


POTTERISM  129 

comment  to  make,  I  made  none,  but  waited  for  him  to  go 
on.  He  went  on. 

"And  what  I  wanted  to  ask  you,  Katherine,  was,  can  you 
look  after  Jane  a  little?  She'll  need  it;  she  needs  it.  She's 
got  to  get  through  it  somehow.  .  .  .  And  that  family  of  hers 
always  buzzing  around.  ...  If  we  could  keep  Lady  Pinker- 
ton  off  her  .  .  ." 

"You  want  me  to  mix  a  poison  for  Lady  P  ?"  I  suggested. 

Arthur  must  have  been  very  far  through,  for  he  actually 
started. 

"Oh,  Heaven  forbid.  .  .  .  One  sudden  death  in  the  fam- 
ily is  enough  at  a  time,"  he  added  feebly,  trying  to  smile. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I'll  do  my  best  to  see  after  Jane  and  to 
counteract  the  family.  ...  I've  not  gone  there  or  written, 
or  anything  yet,  because  I  didn't  want  to  butt  in.  But  I 
Will." 

"I  wish  she'd  come  back  here  to  live  with  you,"  he  said. 

To  soothe  him,  I  said  I  would  ask  her. 

For  nearly  an  hour  longer  he  stayed,  not  talking  much, 
but  smoking  hard,  and  from  time  to  time  jerking  out  a  dis- 
connected remark.  I  think  he  hardly  knew  what  he  was 
saying  or  doing  that  evening;  he  seemed  dazed,  and  I  noticed 
that  his  hands  were  shaking,  as  if  he  was  feverish,  or  drunk, 
or  something. 

When  at  last  he  went,  he  held  my  hand  and  wrung  it 
so  that  it  hurt;  this  was  unusual,  too,  because  we  never  do 
shake  hands,  we  meet  much  too  often. 

I  thought  it  over  and  couldn't  quite  understand  it  all. 
It  even  occurred  to  me  that  it  was  a  little  Potterish  of 
Arthur  to  make  a  conventional  tragic  situation  out  of  what  he 
couldn't  really  mind  very  much,  and  to  make  out  that 
Jane  was  overwhelmed  by  what,  I  believed,  didn't  really 
overwhelm  her.  But  that  didn't  do.  Arthur  was  never 


130  POTTERISM 

Potterish.  There  must,  therefore,  be  more  of  this  than 
I  understood. 

Unless,  of  course,  it  was  merely  that  Arthur  was  afraid 
of  the  effects  of  the  shock  and  so  on,  on  Jane's  health, 
because  she  had  a  baby  coming.  But  somehow  that  didn't 
really  meet  the  situation.  I  remembered  Arthur's  voice 
when  he  said,  "There's  more  to  it  than  you  know.  ...  It 
is  a  mess.  A  ghastly  mess. 

And  another  rather  queer  thing  I  remembered  was  that, 
all  through  the  evening,  he  hadn't  once  met  my  eyes.  An 
odd  thing  in  Arthur,  for  he  has  a  habit  of  looking  at  the 
people  he  is  talking  to  very  straight  and  hard,  as  if  to  hold 
their  minds  to  his  by  his  eyes. 

Well,  I  supposed  that  in  about  a  year  those  two  would 
marry,  anyhow.  And  then  they  would  talk,  and  talk,  and 
talk.  .  .  .  And  Arthur  would  look  at  Jane  not  only  be- 
cause he  was  talking  to  her,  but  because  he  liked  to  look 
at  her.  .  .  .  They  would  be  all  right  then,  so  why  should 
I  bother? 


I  went  to  see  Jane,  but  found  Lady  Pinkerton  in  possession. 
I  saw  Jane  for  five  minutes  alone.  She  was  much 
as  I  had  expected,  calm  and  rather  silent.  I  asked  her  to 
come  round  to  the  flat  any  evening  she  could.  She  came 
next  week,  and  after  that  got  into  the  way  of  dropping  in 
pretty  often,  both  in  the  evenings,  when  I  was  at  home, 
and  during  the  day,  when  I  was  at  the  laboratory.  She 
said,  "You  see,  old  thing,  mother  has  got  it  into  her  head 
that  I  need  company.  The  only  way  I  can  get  out  of  it  is  to 
say  I  shall  be  here.  .  .  .  Mother's  rather  much  just  now. 
She's  got  the  Other  Side  on  the  brain,  and  is  trying  to  put 
me  in  touch  with  it.  She  reads  me  books  called  Letters 


POTTfcRISM  131 

from  the  Other  Side,  and  Hands  Across  the  Grave,  and  so 
on.  And  she  talks.  .  .  ." 

Jane  pushed  back  her  hair  from  her  forehead  and  leant 
her  head  on  her  hand. 

"In  what  mother  calls  'my  condition,' "  she  went  on,  "I 
don't  think  I  ought  to  be  worried,  do  you?  I  wish  baby 
would  come  at  once,  so  that  I  shouldn't  be  in  a  condition 
any  more.  .  .  .I'm  really  awfully  fond  of  baby,  but  I 
shall  get  to  hate  it  if  I'm  reminded  of  it  much  more.  .  .  . 
What  a  rotten  system  it  is,  K.  Why  haven't  we  evolved 
a  better  one,  all  these  centuries?" 

I  couldn't  imagine  why,  except  for  the  general  principle 
that  as  the  mental  equipment  of  the  human  race  improves, 
its  physical  qualities  apparently  deteriorate. 

"And  where  will  that  land  us  in  the  end?"  Jane 
speculated.  "Shall  we  be  a  race  of  clever  crocks,  or  shall 
we  give  up  civilisation  and  education  and  be  robust  im- 
beciles?" 

"Either,"  I  said,  "will  be  an  improvement  on  the  present 
regime,  of  crocky  imbeciles." 

We  would  talk  like  that,  of  things  in  general,  in  the 
old  way.  Jane,  indeed,  would  have  moods  in  which  she 
would  talk  continuously,  and  I  would  suddenly  think, 
watching  her,  "You're  trying  to  hide  from  something — to 
talk  it  down." 


And  then  one  evening  Arthur  and  she  met  at  my  flat.  Jane 
had  been  having  supper  with  me,  and  Arthur  dropped  in. 

Jane  said,  "Hello,  Arthur,"  and  Arthur  said,  "Oh, 
hallo,"  and  I  saw  plainly  that  the  last  person  either  had 
wanted  to  meet  was  the  other. 

Arthur  didn't  stay  at  all.  He  said  he  had  come  to  speak 
to  me  about  a  review  he  wanted  me  to  do.  It  wasn't  neces- 


132  POTTERISM 

sary  that  he  should  speak  to  me  about  it  at  all;  he  had  al- 
ready sent  me  the  book,  and  I  hadn't  yet  read  it,  and  it  was 
on  a  subject  he  knew  nothing  at  all  about,  and  there  was 
nothing  whatever  to  say.  However,  he  succeeded  in  say- 
ing something,  then  went  away. 

Jane  had  hardly  spoken  to  him  or  looked  at  him.  She 
was  reading  an  evening  paper. 

She  put  it  down  when  he  had  gone. 

"Does  Arthur  come  in  often?"  she  asked  me  casually, 
lighting  another  cigarette. 

"No.     Sometimes." 

After  a  minute  or  two,  Jane  said,  "Look  here,  K,  I'll 
tell  you  something.  I'm  not  particularly  keen  on  meeting 
Arthur  for  the  present.  Nor  he  me." 

"That's  not  exactly  news,  my  dear." 

"No;  it  fairly  stuck  out  just  now,  didn't  it?  Well,  the 
fact  is,  we  both  want  a  little  time  to  collect  ourselves,  to 
settle  how  we  stand.  .  .  .  Sudden  deaths  are  a  bad  jar,  K. 
They  break  things  up.  .  .  .  Arthur  and  I  were  more 
/friends  than  Oliver  liked,  you  know.  He  didn't  like 
Arthur,  and  didn't  like  my  going  about  with  him.  .  .  . 
Oh,  well,  you  know  all  that  as  well  as  I  do,  of  course. 
.  .  .  And  now  he's  dead.  ...  It  seems  to  spoil  things  a 
bit.  ...  I  hate  meeting  Arthur  now." 

And  then  an  extraordinary  thing  happened.  Jane,  whom 
I  had  never  seen  cry,  broke  down  quite  suddenly  and  cried. 
Of  course,  it  would  have  seemed  quite  natural  in  most 
people,  but  tears  are  as  surprising  in  Jane  as  they  would 
be  in  me.  They  aren't  part  of  her  equipment.  However, 
she  was  out  of  health  just  now,  of  course,  and  had  had  a 
bad  shock,  and  was  emotionally  overwrought;  and,  anyhow, 
she  cried. 

I  mixed  her  some  sal  volatile,  which,  I  understand,  is  done 
in  these  crises.  She  drank  it  and  stopped  crying  soon. 


POTTERISM  133 

"Sorry  to  be  such  an  ass,"  she  said,  more  in  her  normal 
tone.  "It's  this  beastly  baby,  I  suppose.  .  .  .  Well,  look 
here,  K,  you  see  what  I  mean.  Arthur  and  I  don't  want  to 
meet  just  now.  If  he's  likely  to  come  in  much,  I  must 
give  up  coming,  that's  all." 

"I'll  tell  him,"  I  said,  "that  you're  often  here.     If  he 
doesn't  want  to  meet  you  either,  that  ought  to  settle  it." 
"Thanks,  old  thing,  will  you?" 

Jane  was  the  perfect  egotist.  If  it  ever  occurred  to  her 
/  that  possibly  Arthur  would  like  to  see  me  sometimes,  and 
;  I  him,  she  would  not  think  it  mattered.  She  wanted  to 
1  come  to  my  flat,  and  she  didn't  want  to  meet  Arthur;  there- 
j  fore  Arthur  mustn't  come.  Life's  little  difficulties  are  very 
simply  arranged  by  the  Potter  twins. 


Then,  for  nine  days,  we  none  of  us  thought  or  talked 
much  about  anything  but  the  railway  strike.  The  strike 
was  rather  like  the  war.  The  same  old  cries  began  again— 
carrying  on,  doing  one's  bit,  seeing  it  through,  fighting  to  a 
finish,  enemy  atrocities  (only  now  they  were  called  sabotage), 
starving  them  out,  gallant  volunteers,  the  indomitable  Brit- 
isher, cheeriest  always  in  disaster  (what  a  hideous  slander!), 
innocent  women  and  children.  I  never  understood  about 
these,  at  least,  about  the  women.  Why  is  it  worse  that  ( 
women  should  suffer  than  men  ?  As  to  innocence,  they  have 
no  more  of  that  than  men.  I'm  not  innocent,  particularly, 
nor  are  the  other  women  I  know.  But  they  are  always 
classed  with  children,  as  sort  of  helpless  imbeciles  who  must 
be  kept  from  danger  and  discomfort.  I  got  sick  of  it  during 
the  war.  The  people  who  didn't  like  the  blockade  talked 
about  starving  women  and  children,  as  if  it  was  some- 
how worse  that  women  should  starve  than  men.  Other 


134  POTTERISM 

people  (quite  other)  talked  of  our  brave  soldiers  who  were 
fighting  to  defend  the  women  and  children  of  their  country, 
or  the  dastardly  air  raids  that  killed  women  and  children. 
Why  not  have  said  "non-combatants,"  which  makes  sense? 
There  were  plenty  of  male  non-combatants,  unfit  or  over 
age  or  indispensable,  and  it  was  quite  as  bad  that  they  should 
be  killed — worse,  I  suppose,  when  they  were  indispensable.'  ' 
Very  few  women  or  children  are  that. 

So  now  the  appeal  to  strikers  published  in  the  adver- 
tisement columns  of  the  papers  at  the  expense  of  "a  few 
patriotic  citizens"  said,  "Don't  bring  further  hardship  and 
suffering  upon  the  innocent  women  and  children.  .  .  . 
Save  the  women  and  children  from  the  terror  of  the  strike." 
Fools. 

In  another  column  was  the  N.U.R.  advertisement,  and 
that  was  worse.  There  was  a  picture  of  a  railwayman  look- 
ing like  a  consumptive  in  the  last  stages,  and  embracing  one 
of  his  horrible  children  while  his  more  horrible  wife  and 
mother  supported  the  feeble  heads  of  others,  and  under  it 
was  written,  "Is  this  man  an  anarchist?  He  wants  a  wage 
to  keep  his  family,"  and  it  was  awful  to  think  that  he  and 
his  family  would  perhaps  get  the  wage  and  be  kept  after  all. 
The  question  about  whether  he  was  an  anarchist  was 
obviously  unanswerable  without  further  data,  as  there  was 
nothing  in  the  picture  to  show  his  political  convictions ;  they 
might,  from  anything  that  appeared,  have  been  liberal,  tory, 
labour,  socialist,  anarchist,  or  coalition-unionist.  And  any- 
how, supposing  that  he  had  been  an  anarchist,  he  would 
I  still,  presumably,  have  wanted  a  wage  to  keep  his  family,  i 
^Anarchists  are  people  who  disapprove  of  authority,  not  of  f 
wages.  The  member  of  the  N.U.R.  who  composed  that  pic- 
ture must  have  had  a  muddled  mind.  But  so  many  people 
have,  and  so  many  people  use  words  in  an  odd  sense,  that 
you  can't  find  in  the  dictionary.  Bolshevists,  for  instance. 


POTTERISM  135 

Lloyd  George  called  the  strikers  Bolshevists,  so  did  plenty  of  , 
other  people.  None  of  them  seem  to  have  any  very  clear 
conception  of  the  political  convictions  of  the  supporters  of 
the  Soviet  government  in  Russia.  To  have  that  you  would 
need  to  think  and  read  a  little,  whereas  to  use  the  word  as 
a  vague  term  of  abuse,  you  need  only  to  feel,  which  many 
people  find  much  easier.  Some  people  use  the  word  Capitalist 
in  the  same  way,  as  a  term  of  abuse,  meaning  really  only 
"rich  person."  If  they  stopped  to  think  of  the  meaning  of 
the  word,  they  would  remember  that  it  means  merely  a 
person  who  uses  what  money  he  has  productively,  instead  of 
hoarding  it  in  a  stocking. 

But  "Capitalist"  and  "Bolshevist"  were  both  flung  about 
freely  during  the  strike,  by  the  different  sides.  Emotional 
unrest,  I  suppose.  People  get  excited,  and  directly  they 
(  get  excited  they  get  sentimental  and  confused.  The  daily 
press  did,  on  both  sides.  I  don't  know  which  was  worse. 
The  Pinkerton  press  blossomed  into  silly  chit-chat  about 
noblemen  working  on  underground  trains.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  most  of  the  volunteer  workers  were  clerks  and  trades- 
men and  working  men,  but  these  weren't  so  interesting  to 
talk  about,  I  suppose. 

The  Fact  became  more  than  ever  precise  and  pedantic 
and  clear-headed,  and  what  people  call  dull.  It  didn't  take 
sides:  it  simply  gave,  in  more  detail  than  any  other  paper, 
the  issues,  and  the  account  of  the  negotiations,  and  had  expert 
articles  on  the  different  currents  of  influence  on  both  sides. 
It  didn't  distort  or  conceal  the  truth  in  either  direction. 

I  met  Lady  Pinkerton  one  evening  at  Jane's.  She 
would,  of  course,  come  up  to  town,  though  the  amateur 
trains  were  too  full  without  her.  She  said,  "Of  course, 
They  hate  us.  They  want  a  Class  War." 

Jane  said,  "Who  are  They,  and  who  are  Us?"  and  she 
said,  "The  working  classes,  of  course.  They've  always 


136  POTTERISM 

hated  us.  They're  Bolshevists  at  heart.  They  won't  be 
satisfied  until  they've  robbed  us  of  all  we  have.  They 
hate  us.  That  is  why  they  are  striking.  We  must  crush 
them  this  time,  or  it  will  be  the  beginning  of  the  end." 

I    said,    "Oh,    I    thought    they   were    striking,    because 
they  wanted  the  principle  of  standardisation  of   rates  of  \ 
wages,  for  men  in  the  same  grade  to  be  applied  to  other  j 
grades  than  drivers  and  firemen." 

Lady  Pinkerton  was  bored.  I  imagine  she  understands 
about  hate  and  love  and  envy  and  greed  and  determination, 
and  other  emotions,  but  not  much  about  rates  of  wages. 

/  So  she  likes  to  talk  about  one  but  not  about  the  other.  All, 
for  instance,  that  she  knows  about  Bolshevism  is  its  senti- 

[  mental  side — how  it  is  against  the  rich,  and  wants  to  na- 

/  tionalise  women,  and  murder  the  upper  classes.  She  doesn't 
know  about  any  of  the  aspects  of  the  Bolshevist  constitution 

\  beyond  those  which  she  can  take  in  through  her  emotions. 

|  She  would  find  the  others  dull,  as  she  finds  technical  wage 
questions.  That's  partly  why  she  hates  the  Fact.  If  she 
happened  to  be  on  the  other  side,  she  would  talk  the  same 
tosh,  only  use  "Capitalist"  for  "Bolshevist." 

She  said,  "Anyhow,  whatever  the  issue,  the  blood  of  the 
country  is  up.  We  must  fight  the  thing  through.  It  is 
splendid  the  way  the  upper  classes  are  stepping  into  the 
breach  on  the  railways.  I  honour  them.  I  only  hope  they 
won't  be  murdered  by  these  despicable  brutes." 

That   was  the  way  she   talked.    Plenty  of  people  did,^ 
on  both  sides.     Especially,  I  am  afraid,  innocent  women,  j 
I  suppose  they  were  too  innocent  to  talk  about  facts. 

After  all,  the  country  didn't  have  to  fight  the  thing 
through  for  very  long,  and  there  were  no  murders,  for  the 
strike  ended  on  October  the  5th. 


POTTERISM  137 


That  same  week,  Jukie  came  in  to  see  me.  Jukie  doesn't 
often  come,  because  his  evenings  are  apt  to  be  full.  A  £ar- 
son's  work  seems  to  be  like  a  woman's,  never  done.  From 
6 :00  to  1 1 :00  p.  m.  seems  to  be  one  of  the  great  times  for 
doing  it.  Probably  Jukie  had  to  cut  some  of  it  the  evening 
he  came  round  to  Gough  Square. 

I  always  like  to  see  Jukie.  He's  entertaining,  and  knows 
about  such  queer  things,  that  none  of  the  rest  of  us  know, 
and  believes  such  incredible  things,  that  none  of  the  rest  of 
us  believe.  Besides,  like  Arthur,  he's  all  out  on  his  job. 
He's  still  touchingly  full  of  faith,  even  after  all  that  has 
happened,  in  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  He  believed 
at  that  time  that  the  League  of  Nations  was  going  to  kill 
war,  that  the  Labour  Party  were  going  to  kill  industrial 
inequity,  that  the  country  was  going  to  kill  the  Coalition 
Government,  that  the  Christian  Church  was  going  to  kill 
selfishness,  that  some  one  was  going  to  kill  Horatio  Bot- 
tomley,  and  that  we  were  all  going  to  kill  Potterism. 
A  perfect  orgy  of  murders,  as  Arthur  said,  and  all  of  them 
so  improbable. 

Jukie  is  curate  in  a  slummy  parish  near  Covent  Garden. 
He  succeeds,  apparently,  in  really  being  friends — equal  and 
intimate  friends — with  a  lot  of  the  men  in  his  parish,  which 
is  queer  for  a  person  of  his  kind.  I  suppose  he  learnt  how 
while  he  was  in  the  ranks.  He  deserved  to;  Arthur  told 
me  that  he  had  persistently  refused  promotion  because  he 
wanted  to  go  on  living  with  the  men ;  and  that's  not  a 
soft  job,  from  all  accounts,  especially  for  a  clean  and  over- 
fastidious  person  like  Jukie.  Of  course,  he's  very  popular, 
because  he's  very  attractive.  And,  of  course,  it's  spoilt  him 
a  little.  I  never  knew  a  very  popular  and  attractive  person 
who  wasn't  a  little  spoilt  by  it;  and  in  Jukie's  case  it's  a 


138  POTTERISM 

pity,  because  he's  too  good  for  that  sort  of  thing,  but  it 
hasn't  really  damaged  him  much. 

He  came  in  that  evening  saying,  "Katherine,  I  want  to 
speak  to  you,"  and  sat  down  looking  rather  worried  and 
solemn.  He  plunged  into  it  at  once,  as  he  always  does. 

"Have  you  heard  any  talk  lately  about  Gideon  ?"  he  asked 
me. 

"Nothing  more  interesting  than  usual,"  I  said.  "But  I 
seldom  hear  talk.  I  don't  mix  enough.  We  don't  gossip 
much  in  the  lab.,  you  know.  I  look  to  you  and  my  Fleet 
Street  friends  for  spicy  personal  items.  What's  the  latest 
about  Arthur?" 

"Just  this,"  he  said.  "People  are  going  about  saying  that 
he  pushed  Hobart  downstairs." 

I  felt,  then,  as  if  I  had  known  all  along  that  of  course 
people  were  saying  that. 

"Then  why  isn't  he  arrested?"!  asked  stupidly. 

"He  probably  will  be,  before  long,"  said  Jukie.  "There's 
no  evidence  yet  to  arrest  him  on.  At  present  it's  merely 
talk,  started  by  that  Pinkerton  woman,  and  sneaking  about 
from  person  to  person  in  the  devilish  way  such  talk  does. 
...  I  was  with  Gideon  yesterday,  and  saw  two  people 
cut  him  dead.  .  .  .  You  see,  it's  all  so  horribly  plausible ; 
every  one  knows  they  hated  each  other  and  had  just  quar- 
relled; and  it  seems  he  was  there  that  night,  just  before 
it  happened.  He  went  home  with  Jane." 

I  remembered  that  they  had  left  my  place  together.  But 
neither  Arthur  nor  Jane  had  told  me  that  he  had  gone 
home  with  her. 

"The  inquest  said  it  was  accidental,"  I  said,  protesting 
against  something,  I  didn't  quite  know  what. 

Jukie  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"That's  not  very  likely  to  stop  people  talking." 

He  added  after  a  moment,  "But  it's  got  to  be  stopped 


POTTERISM  139 

somehow.  ...  I  went  to  an  awful  bazaar  this  afternoon, 
on  purpose  to  meet  that  woman.  I  met  her.  I  spoke  to 
her.  I  told  her  to  chuck  it.  She  as  good  as  told  me  she 
wasn't  going  to.  I  mentioned  the  libel  law — she  practically 
dared  Gideon  to  use  it  against  her.  She  means  to  go  on« 
She's  poisoning  the  air  with  her  horrible  whispers  and 
slanders.  Why  can't  some  one  choke  her?  What  can  we 
do  about  it,  that's  the  question?  Ought  one  of  us  to  tell 
Gideon?  I'm  inclined  to  think  we  ought." 

"Are  you  sure  he  doesn't  know  it  already?" 

"No,  I'm  not  sure.  Gideon  knows  most  things.  But  the 
person  concerned  is  usually  the  last  to  hear  such  talk.  And, 
in  case  he  has  no  suspicion,  I  think  we  should  tell  him." 

"And  get  him  to  issue,  through  the  Fact  a  semi-official 
statement  that  'the  whole  story  is  a  tissue  of  lies.'  " 

Then  I  wished  I  hadn't  used  that  particular  phrase.  It 
was  an  unfortunate  one.  It  suggested  a  similarity  between 
Lady  Pinkerton's  story  and  Mr.  Bullit's,  between  Arthur 
Gideon's  denial  and  Lloyd  George's. 

Jukie's  eyes  met  mine  swiftly,  not  dreamy  and  intro- 
spective as  usual,  but  keen  and  thoughtful. 

"Katherine,"  he  said,  "we  may  as  well  have  this  out. 
It  won't  hurt  Gideon  here.  Is  it  a  lie?  I  believe  so,  but, 
frankly,  I  don't  feel  certain.  I  don't  know  what  to  think. 
Do  you?" 

I  considered  it,  looking  at  it  all  ways.  The  recent  past, 
Arthur's  attitude  and  Jane's,  were  all  lit  up  by  this  horrible 
flare  of  light  which  was  turned  upon  them. 

"No,"  I  said  at  last.  "I  don't  know,  either.  .  .  .  We 
can't  assume  for  certain  that  it  is  a  lie." 

Jukie  let  out  a  long  breath,  and  leant  forward  in  his 
chair,  resting  his  head  on  his  hands. 

"Poor  old  Gideon,"  he  said.  "It  might  have  happened, 
without  any  intention  upon  his  part.  If  Hobart  found  him 


140  POTTERISM 

there  with  Jane  .  .  .  and  if  they  quarrelled  .  .  . 
Gideon's  got  a  quick  temper,  and  Hobart  always  made 
him  see  red.  .  .  .  He  might  have  hit  him — pushed  him 
down,  without  meaning  to  injure  him — and  then  it  would  be 
done.  And  then — if  he  did  it — he  must  have  left  the  house 
at  once  .  .  .  perhaps  not  knowing  he'd  killed  him.  Per- 
haps he  didn't  know  till  afterwards.  And  then  Jane  might 
have  asked  him  not  to  say  anything  ...  I  don't  know. 
I  don't  know.  Perhaps  it's  nonsense ;  perhaps  it  is  a  tissue  of 
lies.  I  hope  to  God  it  is.  .  .  .1  only  know  one  thing 
that  makes  me  even  suspect  it  may  be  true,  and  that  is  that 
Gideon  has  been  absolutely  miserable,  and  gone  about  like 
a  man  half  stunned,  ever  since  it  happened.  Why?" 

He  shot  the  question  at  me,  hoping  I  had  some  answer. 
But  I  had  none.  I  shook  my  head. 

"Well,"  said  Jukie  sadly,  "it  isn't,  I  suppose,  our  business 
whether  he  did  or  didn't  do  it.  That's  between  him  and — 
himself.  But  it  is  our  business,  whether  he's  innocent  or 
guilty,  to  put  him  on  his  guard  against  this  talk.  It's  for  you 
or  me  to  do  that,  Katherine.  Will  you  ?" 

"If  you  like." 

"I'd  rather  you  did  it,  if  you  will  ...  I  think  he's 
less  likely  to  think  that  you're  trying  to  find  things  out. 
.  .  .  You  see,  I  warned  him  once  before,  about  another 
thing,  and  he  might  think  I  was  linking  it  in  my  mind  with 
that." 

"With  Jane,"  I  said,  and  he  nodded. 

"Yes.  With  Jane  ...  I  spoke  to  him  about  Jane  a 
few  days  before  it  happened.  I  thought  it  might  be  some 
use.  But  I  think  it  only  made  things  worse.  . " .  .  I'd 
rather  leave  this  to  you,  unless  you  hate  it  too  much. 
.  .  .  Oh,  it's  all  pretty  sickening,  isn't  it?  Gideon — 
Gideon,  in  this  sort  of  mess..  Gideon,  the  best  of  the  lot 
of  us.  ...  You  see,  even  if  it's  all  moonshine  about 


POTTERISM  141 

Hobart,  as  I'm  quite  prepared  to  believe  it  probably  is,  he's 
gone  and  given  plausibility  to  the  yarn  by  falling  in  love 
with  Hobart's  wife.  Nothing  can  get  round  that.  Why 
couldn't  he  have  chucked  it — gone  away — anything — when 
he  felt  it  coming  on?  A  strong,  fine,  keen  person  like  that, 
to  be  bowled  over  by  his  sloppy  emotions  and  dragged  through 
the  mud,  like  any  beastly  sensualist,  or  like  one  of  my  own 
cheery  relations.  .  .  .I'd  rather  he'd  done  Hobart  in. 
There'd  have  been  some  sense  about  that,  if  he  had.  After 
all,  it  would  have  been  striking  a  blow  against  Potterism. 
Only,  if  he  did  do  it,  it  would  be  more  like  him  to  face 
the  music  and  own  to  it.  What  I  can't  fit  into  the  picture 
is  Gideon  sneaking  away  in  the  dark,  afraid.  .  .  .  Oh, 
well,  it's  not  my  business.  .  .  .  Good-night,  Katherine. 
You'll  do  it  at  once,  won't  you?  Ring  him  up  to-morrow 
and  get  him  to  dine  with  you  or  something.  If  there's 
any  way  of  stopping  that  poisonous  woman's  tongue,  we'll 
find  it.  ...  Meanwhile,  I  shall  tell  our  parish  workers 
that  Leila  Yorke's  works  are  obscene,  and  that  they're  not 
to  read  them  to  mothers'  meetings  as  is  their  habit." 

I  sat  up  till  midnight,  wondering  how  on  earth  I  was 
going  to  put  it  to  Arthur. 


I  didn't  dine  with  Arthur.  I  thought  It  would  last  too 
long,  and  that  he  might  want  me  to  go,  and  that  I  should 
certainly  want  to  go,  after  I  had  said  what  I  had  to  say. 
So  I  rang  him  up  at  the  office  and  asked  if  he  could  lunch. 
Not  at  the  club;  it's  too  full  of  people  we  know,  who  keep 
interrupting,  and  who  would  be  tremendously  edified  at 
catching  murmurs  about  libel  and  murder  and  Lady  Pink- 
erton  being  poisoned.  So  I  said  the  Temple  Bar  res- 
taurant in  Fleet  Street,  a  disagreeable  place,  but  so  noisy 


142  POTTERISM 

and  crowded  that  you  can  say  what  you  like  unheard — 
unheard  very  often  by  the  person  you  are  addressing,  and 
certainly  by  every  one  else. 

We  sat  downstairs,  at  a  table  at  the  back,  and  there 
I  told  him,  in  what  hardly  needed  to  be  an  undertone,  of 
the  rumors  that  were  being  circulated  about  him.  I  felt 
like  a  horrid  woman  in  a  village  who  repeats  spiteful  gossip, 
and  says,  "I'm  telling  you  because  I  think  you  ought  to 
know  what's  being  said."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  was  the 
one  and  only  case  I  have  ever  come  across  in  which  I  have 
thought  the  person  concerned  ought  to  know  what  was  being 
said.  As  a  rule,  it  seems  the  last  thing  they  ought  to  know. 

He  listened,  staring  at  the  tablecloth  and  crumbling  his 
bread. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  "for  telling  me.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  knew.  Or,  anyhow,  guessed.  .  .  .  But  I'm  not 
sure  that  anything  can  be  done  to  stop  it." 

"Unless,"  I  said,  looking  away  from  him,  "you  could  find 
grounds  for  a  libel  action.  You  might  ask  a  lawyer." 

"No,"  he  returned  quickly.  "That's  quite  impossible. 
Out  of  the  question.  .  .  .  There  are  no  grounds.  And 
I  wouldn't  if  there  were.  I'm  not  going  to  have  the  thing 
made  a  show  of  in  the  courts.  It's  exactly  what  the  Pinker- 
tons  would  enjoy — a  first-class  Pinkerton  scoop.  No,  I  shall 
let  it  alone." 

"Is  there  no  way  of  stopping  it,  then?"  I  asked. 

"Only  one,"  he  murmured  absently,  beneath  his  breath, 
then  caught  himself  up.  "I  don't  know,  I  think  not." 

I  didn't  make  any  further  suggestions.  What  was  the 
good  of  advising  him  to  remonstrate  with  the  Pinkertons? 
If  they  were  lying,  it  was  the  obvious  course.  If  they  weren't, 
it  was  an  impossible  one.  I  let  it  alone. 

Arthur  was  frowning  as  he  ate  cold  beef. 

"There's  one  thing,"  he  said.     "Does  Jane  know  what  is 


POTTERISM  143 

being  said?  Do  you  suppose  her  parents  have  talked  about 
it  to  her?" 

I  said  I  didn't  know,  and  he  went  on  frowning.  Then 
he  murdered  a  wasp  with  his  knife — a  horrible  habit  at 
meals,  but  one  practised  by  many  returned  soldiers,  who 
kill  all  too  readily.  I  suppose  after  killing  all  those  Ger- 
mans, and  possibly  Oliver  Hobart,  a  wasp  seems  nothing. 

"Well,"  he  said  absently,  when  he  was  through  with  the 
wasp,  "I  don't  know.  I  don't  know,"  and  he  seemed,  some- 
how, helpless  and  desperate,  as  if  he  had  come  to  the  end  of 
his  tether. 

"I  must  think  it  over,"  he  said.  And  then  he  suddenly 
began  to  talk  about  something  else. 

8 

Arthur's  manner,  troubled  rather  than  indignant,  had  been 
against  him.  He  had  dismissed  the  idea  of  a  libel  action, 
and  not  proposed  to  confront  his  libellers  in  a  personal  inter- 
view. Every  circumstance  seemed  against  him.  I  knew  that, 
as  I  walked  back  to  the  laboratory  after  lunch. 

And  yet — and  yet. 

Well,  perhaps,  as  Jukie  would  say,  it  wasn't  my  business. 
My  business  at  the  moment  was  to  carry  on  investigations 
into  the  action  of  carbohydrates.  Arthur  Gideon  had  nothing 
to  do  with  this,  nor  I  with  his  private  slayings,  if  any. 

I  wrote  to  Jukie  that  evening  and  told  him  I  had  warned 
Arthur,  who  apparently  knew  already  what  was  being  said, 
but  didn't  seem  to  be  contemplating  taking  any  steps  about  it. 

So  that  was  that. 

Or  so  I  thought  at  the  time.  But  it  wasn't.  Because, 
when  I  had  posted  my  letter  to  Jukie,  and  sat  alone  in  my 
room,  smoking  and  thinking,  at  last  with  leisure  to  open 
my  mind  to  ail  the  impressions  and  implications  of  the  day 


144  POTTERISM 

(I  haven't  time  for  this  in  the  laboratory),  I  began  to  fumble 
for  and  find  a  new  clue  to  Arthur's  recent  oddness.  For 
twenty-four  hours  I  had  believed  he  had  perhaps  killed 
Oliver  Hobart.  Now,  suddenly  I  didn't.  But  I  was  clear 
that  there  was  something  about  Oliver  Hobart's  death  which 
concerned  him,  touched  him  nearly,  and  after  a  moment  it 
occurred  to  me  what  it  might  be. 

"He  suspects  that  Jane  did  it,"  I  said,  slowly  and  aloud. 
"He's  trying  to  shield  her." 

With  that,  everything  that  had  seemed  odd  about  the 
business  became  suddenly  clear — Arthur's  troubled  strange- 
ness, Jane's  dread  of  meeting  him,  her  determined  avoidance 
of  any  reference  to  that  night,  her  sudden  fit  of  crying, 
Arthur's  shrinking  from  the  idea  of  giving  the  talk  against 
him  publicity  by  a  libel  action,  his  question,  "Does  Jane 
know?"  his  remark,  to  himself,  that  there  was  only  one  way 
of  stopping  it.  That  one  way,  of  course,  would  be  to  make 
Jane  tell  her  parents  the  truth,  so  that  they  would  be 
silenced  for  ever.  As  it  was,  the  talk  might  go  on,  and  at 
last  official  investigations  might  be  started,  which  would 
lead  somehow  to  the  exposure  of  the  whole  affair.  The 
exposure  would  probably  take  the  form  of  a  public  admission 
by  Jane;  I  didn't  think  she  would  stand  by  and  see  Arthur 
accused  without  speaking  out. 

So  I  formed  my  theory.  It  was  the  merest  speculation,  of 
course.  But  it  was  obvious  that  there  was  something  in  the 
manner  of  Oliver  Hobart's  death  which  badly  troubled  and 
disturbed  both  Arthur  and  Jane.  That  being  so,  and  taking 
into  account  their  estrangement  from  one  another,  it  was 
difficult  not  to  be  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  one  of  them 
knew,  or  anyhow  guessed,  the  other  to  have  caused  the  ac- 
cident. And,  knowing  them  both  as  I  did,  I  believed  that  if 
Arthur  had  done  it  he  would  have  owned  to  it.  Wouldn't 
one  own  to  it,  if  one  had  knocked  a  man  downstairs  in  a 


POTTERISM  145 

quarrel  and  killed  him  ?  To  keep  it  dark  would  seem  some- 
how cheap  and  timid,  not  in  Arthur's  line. 

Unless  Jane  had  asked  him  to ;  unless  it  was  for  her  sake. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  the  thing  to  do  was  to  go  straight 
to  Jane  and  tell  her  what  was  being  said.  If  she  didn't 
choose  to  do  anything  about  it,  that  was  her  business,  but 
I  was  determined  she  should  know. 


An  hour  later  I  was  in  Jane's  drawing-room.  Jane  was 
sitting  at  her  writing-table,  and  the  room  was  dim  except 
for  the  light  from  the  reading  lamp  that  made  a  soft  bright 
circle  round  her  head  and  shoulders.  She  turned  round 
when  I  came  in  and  said,  "Hallo,  K.  What  an  unusual 
hour.  You  must  have  something  very  important  to  say, 
old  thing." 

"I  have  rather,"  I  said,  and  sat  down  by  her.  "It's 
this,  Jane.  Do  you  know  that  people  are  saying — spreading 
it  about — that  Arthur  killed  your  husband." 

It  was  very  quiet  in  the  room.  For  a  moment  I  heard 
nothing  but  the  ticking  of  a  small  silver  clock  on  the  writing- 
table.  Jane  sat  quite  still,  and  stared  at  me,  not  surprised, 
not  angry,  not  shocked,  but  with  a  queer,  dazed,  blind 
look  that  reminded  me  of  Arthur's  own. 

Then  I  started,  because  some  one  in  the  farther  shadows 
of  the  room  drew  a  long,  quivering  breath  and  said  "Oh" 
on  a  soft,  long-drawn  note.  Looking  round,  I  saw  Clare 
Potter.  She  had  just  got  up  from  a  chair,  and  was  stand- 
ing clutching  its  back  with  one  hand,  looking  pale  and  sick, 
as  if  she  was  going  to  faint. 

I  hadn't  of  course,  known  Clare  was  there,  or  I  wouldn't 
have  said  anything.  But  I  was  rather  irritated;  after  all, 
it  wasn't  her  business,  and  I  thought  it  rather  absurd  the 


146  POTTERISM 

way  she  kept  up  her  attitude  of  not  being  able  to  hear 
Oliver  Hobart's  death  mentioned. 

I  got  up  to  go.  After  all,  I  had  nothing  more  to  say. 
I  didn't  want  to  stop  and  pry,  only  to  let  Jane  know. 

But  as  I  turned  to  go,  I  remembered  that  I  had  one  more 
thing  to  say. 

"It  was  Lady  Pinkerton  who  started  it  and  who  is  keeping 
it  up,"  I  told  Jane.  "Can  you — somehow — stop  her?" 

Jane  still  stared  at  me,  stupidly.  After  a  moment  she 
half  whispered  slowly,  "I — don't — know." 

I  stood  looking  at  her  for  a  second,  then  I  went,  without 
any  more  words. 

All  the  way  home  I  saw  those  two  white  faces  staring  at 
me,  and  heard  Jane's  whisper  "I — don't — know.  ..." 

I  didn't  know,  either. 

I  only  knew,  that  evening,  one  thing — that  I  hated  Jane, 
who  had  got  Arthur  into  this  mess,  and  "didn't  know" 
whether  she  could  get  him  out  of  it  or  not. 

And  I  may  as  well  end  what  I  have  to  tell  by  saying 
something  which  may  or  may  not  have  been  apparent  to 
other  people,  but  which,  anyhow,  it  would  be  Potterish 
humbug  on  my  part  to  try  to  hide.  For  the  last  five  years 
I  had  cared  for  Arthur  Gideon  more  than  for  any  one  else 
in  the  world.  I  saw  no  reason  why  I  shouldn't,  if  I  liked. 
It  has  never  damaged  any  one  but  myself.  It  has  damaged 
me  in  two  ways — it  has  made  it  sometimes  difficult  to  give 
my  mind  to  my  work,  and  it  has  made  me,  often,  rather 
degradingly  jealous  of  Jane.  However,  you  would  hardly 
(I  hope)  notice  it,  and  anyhow  it  can't  be  helped. 


CHAPTER  I 

GIVING  ADVICE 


IT  is  always  rather  amusing  dining  at  Aylesbury  House, 
with  my  stimulating  family.  Especially  since  Chloe,  my 
present  stepmother,  entered  it,  three  years  ago.  Chloe  is 
great  fun ;  much  more  entertaining  than  most  variety  artists. 
I  know  plenty  of  these,  because  Wycombe,  my  eldest 
brother,  introduces  them  to  me.  As  a  class  they  seem 
pleasant  and  good-humoured,  but  a  little  crude,  and  lacking 
in  the  subtler  forms  of  wit  or  understanding.  After  an 
hour  or  so  of  their  company  I  want  to  yawn.  But  Chloe 
keeps  me  going.  She  is  vulgar,  but  racy.  She  is  also  very 
kind  to  me,  and  insists  on  coming  down  to  help  with  the- 
atrical entertainments  in  the  parish.  It  is  so  decent  of  her 
that  I  can't  say  no,  though  she  doesn't  really  fit  in  awfully 
well  with  the  O.U.D.S.  people,  and  the  Marlowe  Society 
people,  and  the  others  whom  I  get  down  for  theatricals.  In 
fact,  Elizabethan  drama  isn't  really  her  touch.  However, 
the  parish  prefers  Chloe,  I  need  hardly  say. 

I  dined  there  on  Chloe's  birthday,  October  15th,  when 
we  always  have  a  family  gathering.     Family  and  other. 


POTTERISM 

But  the  family  is  heterogeneous  enough  to  make  quite  a  good 
party  in  itself.  It  was  represented  on  that  particular 
evening  by  my  father  and  Chloe,  my  young  sister  Diana, 
my  Brothers  Wycombe,  and  Tony,  Tony's  wife,  myself,  my 
uncle  Monsignor  Juke,  my  aunt  the  Marchesa  Centurione 
and  a  daughter,  and  my  Aunt  Cynthia,  who  had  recently, 
on  her  own  fiftieth  birthday,  come  out  of  a  convent  in  which 
she  had  spent  twenty-five  years  and  was  preparing  to  see  Life. 
Besides  the  family,  there  were  two  or  three  theatrical  friends 
of  Chloe's,  and  two  friends  of  my  father's — a  youngish  liter- 
ary man  called  Bryan,  and  the  cabinet  minister  to  whom 
Tony  was  secretary,  but  whom  I  will  not  name,  because  he 
might  not  care  for  it  to  be  generally  known  that  he  was 
an  inmate  of  so  fast  a  household. 

My  Aunt  Cynthia,  having  renounced  her  vows,  and  having 
only  a  comparatively  short  time  in  which  to  enjoy  the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  is  making  the  most  of  it.  She  has 
only  been  out  of  her  convent  a  year,  but  is  already  a  spring 
of  invaluable  personal  information  about  men  and  manners. 
She  knows  everything  that  is  being  said  of  everybody  else, 
and  quite  a  lot  that  hasn't  even  got  as  far  as  that.  Her 
Church  interests  (undiminished  in  keenness)  provide  a  store 
of  tales  inaccessible  to  most  of  my  family  and  their  set  (ex- 
cept my  Uncle  Ferdinand,  of  course,  and  his  are  mostly 
Roman  and  Anglican).  Aunt  Cynthia  has  a  string  of  won- 
derful stories  about  Cowley  Fathers  biting  Ncstorian  Bishops, 
and  Athelstan  Riley  pinching  Hensley  Henson,  and  so  forth. 
She  is  as  good  as  Ronnie  Knox  at  producing  or  inventing 
them.  I'm  not  bad  myself,  when  I  like,  but  Aunt  Cynthia 
leaves  me  out  of  sight. 

This  evening  she  was  full  of  vim.  She  usually  talks  at  the 
top  of  a  very  high  and  strident  voice  (I  don't  know  what 
they  did  with  it  at  the  convent),  and  I  suddenly  heard 
her  screaming  to  the  cabinet  minister,  "Haven't  you  heard 


POTTERISM  149 

that?     Oh,  everybody's  quoting  it  in   Fleet  Street,  aren't 
they,  Mr.  Bryan?     But  I  suppose  you  never  go  to -Fleet 
Street,  Mr.  Blank;  it's  so  important,  isn't  it,  for  the  govern- 
ment not  to  get  mixed  up  with  the  press. 
"Well,   I'll  tell   it  you. 

'There  was  a  young  journalist  Yid, 
Of  his  foes  of  the  press  he  got  rid 

In  ways  brief  and  bright, 

For,  at  dead  of  the  night, 
He  threw  them  downstairs,  so  he  did.' 

"It's  about  the  late  editor  of  the  Daily  Haste  and  Mr. 
Gideon  of  the  ITeekly  Fact.  No,  I  don't  know  who's  re- 
sponsible for  it,  but  I  believe  it's  perfectly  true.  They're 
saying  it  everywhere  now.  I  believe  that  awful  Pinkerton 
woman  is  going  about  saying  she  has  conclusive  evidence; 
it's  been  revealed  from  the  Beyond,  I  believe;  I  expect  by 
poor  Mr.  Hobart  himself.  No,  I'm  sure  she  didn't  make  the 
limmerick ;  she's  not  a  poet,  only  a  novelist.  Perhaps  it 
came  from  the  Beyond,  through  planchette.  Anyhow,  they 
say  Mr.  Gideon  will  be  arrested  on  a  murder  charge  very 
shortly,  and  that  there's  no  doubt  he's  guilty." 

I  leant  across  the  table. 

"Who's  saying  so,  Aunt  Cynthia?"  I  asked  her. 

Aunt  Cynthia  hates  being  asked  that  about  her  stories. 
Of  course.  Every  one  does.  I  do  myself. 

Aunt  Cynthia  looked  at  me  with  her  childlike  convent 
stare. 

"My  dear  Laurie,  how  can  I  remember  who  says  anything, 
with  every  one  saying  everything  all  the  time?  Who?  Why, 
all  sorts  of  people.  .  .  .  Aren't  they,  Chloe?" 

Chloe,  who  was  showing  a  spoon  and  glass  trick  to  the 
Monsignor,  said,  "Aren't  who  what?" 

"Isn't  every  one  saying  that  Arthur  Gideon  threw  Oliver 
Hobart  downstairs  and  killed  him?" 


150  POTTERISM 

"I  expect  so,  dear.  Never  heard  of  either  of  the  gentle- 
men myself.  And  did  he?" 

"Of  course  he  did.  He's  a  Jew,  and  he  hated  Hobart 
and  his  paper  like  poison.  The  Fact's  so  different,  you 
know.  Every  one's  clear  he  did  it.  Mind  you,  I  don't  blame 
him.  The  Daily  Haste  is  a  vulgar  Protestant  rag." 

"The  Jew's  a  dear  friend  of  Laurie's,"  put  in  Wycombe. 
"You'd  better  be  careful,  Aunt  Cynthia." 

"Oh,  Laurie,  dear,"  my  aunt  cried,  "how  tactless  of  me. 
But,  my  dear  boy,  are  you  really  friends  with  a  Jew,  and 
you  a  Christian  priest?" 

"I'm  friends  with  Gideon.  He's  a  Gentile  by  religion,  by 
the  way;  an  ordinary  agnostic.  Aunt  Cynthia,  don't  go  on 
spreading  that  nonsense,  if  you  don't  mind.  You  might  con- 
tradict it  if  you  hear  it  again." 

"Very  well,  dear.  I'll  say  you  have  good  reason  to  know 
it  isn't  true.  I'll  say  you've  been  told  who  did  kill  Mr. 
Hobart,  only  it  was  under  the  seal,  so  you  can't  say. 
Shall  I?" 

"By  all  means,  if  you  like." 

Then  Aunt  Cynthia  chased  off  after  another  exciting 
subject,  and  that  was  all  about  Gideon. 


I  came  away  early  (about  eleven,  which  is  very  early 
for  one  of  Chloe's  evenings,  which  don't  end  till  summer 
dawn)  feeling  more  worried  than  ever  about  Gideon.  If 
the  gossip  about  him  had  penetrated  from  Lady  Pinker- 
ton's  circle  to  my  aunt's,  it  must  be  pretty  widespread.  I 
was  angry  with  Aunt  Cynthia,  and  a  little  with  every  one 
I  had  met  that  evening.  They  were  so  cheerful,  so  content 
with  things  as  they  were,  finding  all  the  world  such  a 
screaming  farce.  ...  I  sometimes  get  my  family  on  my 


POTTERISM  151 

nerves,  when  I  go  there  straight  from  Covent  Garden  and 

its  slum  babies,  and  see  them  spending  and  squandering  and 

being  irresponsible  and  dissolute  and  not  caring  twopence 

for  the  way  two-thirds  of  the  world  live.    There  was  Wy- 

combe  to-night,  with  a  long  story  to  tell  me  about  his  debts 

and  his  amours    (he's  going  to  be  a  co-respondent  in   a 

divorce  case  directly),  and  Chloe,  as  hard  as  nails  beneath 

her  pretty  ways,  and  simply  out  for  a  good  time,  and  Aunt 

Cynthia,  with  half  the  gossip  of  London,  spouting  out  of 

her  like  a  geyser,   and   Diana,   who  might  turn  out  fine 

beyond   description  or  degenerate  into  a  mere  selfish  rake 

(it  won't  be  my  father's  and  Chloe's  fault  if  she  doesn't  do 

the  latter),  and  my  Uncle  Ferdinand  in  purple  and  fine 

linen,  a  prince  of  the  Church,  and  Tony  already  booked  for 

a  political  career,  with  his  chief's  shady  secrets  in  his  keeping 

to  ?how  him  the  way  it's  done.     And  they  bandied  about 

among  them  the  name  of  a  man  who  was  worth  the  lot  of 

them  together,  and  repeated  silly  rhymes  which  might  hang 

him.    ...   It  was  a  little  more  than  I  could  stand. 

/    One  is  so  queer  about  one's  family.     I'm  inclined  to  think 

)  every  one  is.    Often  I  fit  in  with  mine  perfectly,  and  love  to 

)  see  them,  and  find  them  immensely  refreshing  after  Covent 

/  Garden   and  parish  shop.     And  then  another  time  they'll 

j  be  on  my  nerves  and  I  feel  glad  I'm  out  of  it  all.     And 

another  time  again  I'm  jealous  of  them,  and  wish  I  had 

Wycombe's  or  Tony's  chances  of   doing  something  in  the 

'  world  other  than  what  I  am  doing.    That,  of  course,  is  sheer 

(  vulgar  covetousness  and  grab.   It  comes  on  sometimes  when  I 

I  am  tired,  or  bored,  and  the  parish  seems  stale,  and  the  con- 

i  ferences  and  committees  I  attend  unutterably  profitless,  and 

j  I  want  more  clever  people  to  talk  to,  and  bigger  and  more 

'}  educated  audiences  to  preach  to,  and  I  want  to  have  leisure 

'  to  write  more  and  to  make  a  name.   .    .    .   It  is  merely  a 


152  POTTERISM 

vulgar  disease — a  form  of  Potterism.  One  has  to  face  it  and 
fight  it  out. 

But  to-night  I  wasn't  feeling  that.  I  wasn't  feeling  any- 
thing very  much,  except  that  Gideon,  and  all  that  Gideon 
stood  for,  was  worth  immeasureably  more  than  anything  the 
Aylesbury  lot  had  ever  stood  for. 

And  when  I  got  back,  I  found  a  note  from  Katherine  say- 
ing that  she  had  warned  Gideon  about  the  talk  and  that  he 
wasn't  proposing  to  take  any  steps. 


Next  morning  I  had  to  go  to  Church  House  for  a  meeting. 
I  got  the  Daily  Haste  (which  I  seldom  see)  to  read  in  the 
underground.  On  the  front  page,  side  by  side  with  murders, 
suicides,  divorces,  allied  notes,  and  Sinn  Fein  outrages,  was 
a  paragraph  headed  "The  Hobart  Mystery.  Suspicion  of 
Foul  Play."  It  was  about  how  Hobart's  sudden  death 
had  never  been  adequately  investigated,  and  how  curious  and 
suspicious  circumstances  had  of  late  been  discovered  in  con- 
nection with  it,  and  inquiries  were  being  pursued,  and  the 
Haste,  which  was  naturally  specially  interested,  hoped  to  give 
more  news  very  soon. 

So  old  Pinkerton  was  making  a  journalistic  scoop  of  it. 
Of  course;  one  might  have  known  he  would. 

At  my  meeting  (Pulpit  Exchange,  it  was  about)  I  met 
Frank  Potter.  He  is  a  queer  chap — commercial  and  grasp- 
ing, like  all  his  family,  and  dull  too,  and  used  to  talk  one 
sick  about  how  little  scope  he  had  in  his  parish,  and  so  on. 
Since  he  got  to  St.  Agatha's  he's  cheered  up  a  bit,  and  talks 
to  me  now  instead  of  his  big  congregations  and  their  fat 
purses.  He's  a  dull-minded  creature — rather  stupid  and  en- 
tirely conventional.  He's  all  against  pulpit  exchange,  of 
course,  he  thinks  it  would  be  out  of  order  and  tradition.  S& 


POTTERISM  153 

it  would.  And  he's  a  long  way  keener  on  order  and  tradi- 
tion than  he  is  on  spiritual  progress.  A  born  Pharisee,  he 
is  really,  and  yet  with  Christianity  struggling  in  him  here 
and  there ;  and  that's  why  he's  rather  interesting,  in  spite  of 
his  dullness. 

After  the  meeting  I  went  up  to  him  and  showed  him  the 
Haste. 

"Can't  this  be  stopped?"  I  asked  him. 

He  blinked  at  it. 

"That's  what  Johnny  is  up  in  arms  against,  too,"  he  said. 
"He  swears  by  this  chap  who  is  suspected,  and  won't  hear  a 
word  against  him." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "the  question  is,  can  Johnny  or  any  one 
else  do  anything  to  stop  it?  .  .  .  I've  tried.  I  spoke  to 
Lady  Pinkerton  the  other  day.  It  was  no  use.  Can  you 
do  anything?" 

"I'm  afraid  not,"  he  said,  rather  apathetically.  "You 
see,  my  people  believe  Gideon  killed  Hobart,  and  are  de- 
termined to  press  the  matter.  One  can't  blame  them,  you 
know,  if  they  really  think  that.  My  mother  feels  per- 
fectly sure  of  it,  from  various  bits  of  evidence  she's  got  hold 
of,  and  won't  be  happy  till  the  thing  is  thoroughly  sifted-  Of 
course,  if  Gideon's  innocent,  it's  best  for  him,  too,  to  have 
the  thing  out,  now  it's  got  so  far.  Don't  you  agree?" 

"I  don't.  Why  should  a  man  have  to  waste  his  time 
appearing  in  a  criminal  court  to  answer  to  a  charge  of  man- 
slaughter or  murder  which  he  never  committed?  Gideon 
happens  to  have  other  things  to  do  than  to  make  a  nine 
days'  wonder  for  the  press  and  public." 

I  suppose  that  annoyed  Potter  rather.  He  said  sharply, 
"It's  up  to  the  chap  to  prove  his  innocence.  Till  he  does, 
a  great  many  people  will  believe  him  guilty,  I'm  afraid." 

"Including  yourself,  obviously." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 


154  POTTERISM 

"I've  no  prejudices  either  way,"  he  returned,  his  emphasis 
on  the  personal  pronoun  indicating  that  I,  in  his  opinion, 
had. 

But  there  he  was  wrong.    I  hadn't.    I  was  quite  prepared 

to  believe  that  Gideon  had  knocked  Hobart  downstairs,  or 

that  he  hadn't.     You  can't  be  a  parson,  or  indeed,  anything 

else,  for  long,  without  learning  that  decent  men  and  women 

will  do,  at  times,  quite  indecent  thingSj  and  that  the  devil 

is  quite  strong  enough  to  make  a  mess  of  any  human  being's 

life.    You  hear  of  a  man,  that  he  was  in  love  with  another 

man's  wife  and  hated  her  husband  and  at  last  killed  him  in 

a  quarrel — and  you  think  "A  bad  lot."    But  he  may  not  be  a 

bad  lot  at  all;  he  may  be  a  decent  chap,  full  of  ideals  and 

generosity  and  fine  thinking.      Sometimes  I'm  inclined   to 

agree  with  the  author  of  that  gushing  and  hysterical  book 

In  Darkest  Christendom  and  a  Way  Out,  that  the  only  un- 

forgiveable  sin  is  exploitation.  Exploitation  of  human  needs 

and  human  weaknesses  and  human  tragedies,  for  one's  own 

jprofit.   .    .    .  And,  as  we  very  nearly  all  do  it,  in  one  way 

/or  another,  let  us  hope  that  even  that  isn't  quite  unfor- 

j  giveable.     Yes,  we  nearly  all  do  it.     The  press  exploits  for 

/its  benefit  human  silliness  and  ignorance  and  vulgarity  and 

'•  sensationalism,   and,    in   exploiting  it,    feeds   it.     The  war 

]  profiteers   exploited  the  war.   .    .    .  We  all  exploit  other 

'  people — use  their  affection,   their  dependence  on   us,   their 

i  needs  and  their  sins,  for  our  own  ends. 

And  that  is  deliberate.     To  knock  a  fellow  human  being 
downstairs  in  a  quarrel,  so  that  he  dies — that  may  be  impulse  / 
and  accident,  and  is  not  so  vile.     Even  to  say  nothing  after/-'' 
wards— even  that  is  not  so  vile. 

Still,  I  would  rather,  much  rather,  think  that  Gideon 
hadn't  done  it. 

It  was  odd  that,  as  I  was  thinking  these  things,  walking 
up  Surrey  Street  from  the  Temple  Embankment,  I  over- 


POTTERISM  155 

took  Gideon,  who  was  slouching  along  in  his  usual  abstracted 
way. 

I  touched  his  arm  and  spoke  to  him.  He  gave  me  his 
queer,  half-ironical  smile. 

"Hallo,  Juke.  .  .  .  Where  are  you  bound  ?  .  .  By  the 
way,  did  you  by  chance  see  the  Haste  this  morning?" 

"Not  by  chance.  That  doesn't  happen  with  me  and  the 
Haste.  But  I  saw  it." 

"They  obviously  mean  business,  don't  they.  The  sleuth- 
hound  touch.  I  expect  to  be  asked  for  my  photograph  soon, 
for  the  Pink  Pictorial  and  the  Sunday  Rag.  I  must  get  a 
nice  one  taken." 

I  suppose  I  looked  as  I  felt,  for  he  said  in  a  different 
tone,  "Don't  worry,  old  man.  There's  nothing  to  be  done. 
We  must  just  let  this  thing  take  its  course." 

I  couldn't  say  anything,  because  there  was  nothing  to  say 
that  wouldn't  seem  like  asking  him  questions,  or  trying 
to  make  him  admit  or  deny  the  thing  to  me.  I  wanted  to 
ask  him  if  he  couldn't  produce  an  alibi  and  blow  the 
ridiculous  story  to  the  four  winds.  But — suppose  he 
couldn't  .  .  .  ? 

So  I  said  nothing  but,  "Well,  let  me  know  if  ever  I  can 
be  any  use,"  and  we  parted  at  the  top  of  Surrey  Street. 


We  have  evensong  at  five  at  St.  Christopher's.  No  one 
comes  much.  The  people  in  the  parish  aren't  weekday 
church  sort.  Those  among  them  who  come  to  church  at  all 
mostly  confine  their  energies  to  evening  service  on  Sundays, 
through  a  few  of  them  consent  to  turn  up  at  choral  mass 
at  eleven.  And,  by  means  of  guilds  and  persuasion,  we've 
induced  a  good  many  of  the  lads  and  girls  to  come  to  early 
mass  sometimes.  The  vicar  gets  discouraged  at  times,  but 


156  POTTERISM 

not  so  much  as  most  vicars  would,  because  he  more  or  less 
agrees  with  me  in  not  thinking  church-going  a  test  of 
Christianity.  The  vicar  is  one  of  the  cleverest  and  most 
original  parsons  in  the  Church,  in  my  opinion.  He  has  a 
keen,  shrewd,  practical  insight  into  the  distinction  between 
essentials  and  non-essentials.  He  is  popular  in  the  parish, 
but  I  don't  think  the  people  understand,  as  a  rule,  what  he  is 
getting  at. 

Anyhow,  the  only  people  who  usually  came  to  our  week- 
day services  were  a  few  church  workers  and  an  elderly  lady 
or  two  who  happened  to  be  passing  and  dropped  in.  The 
elderly  ladies  who  lived  in  the  parish  were  much  too  busy 
for  any  such  foolishness. 

But  this  evening — the  evening  of  the  day  I  had  met 
Gideon — there  was  a  girl  in  church.  She  was  rather  at  the 
back,  and  I  didn't  see  who  it  was  till  I  was  going  out.  Then 
ishe  stopped  me  at  the  door,  and  I  saw  that  it  was  Clare 
Potter.  I  knew  Clare  Potter  very  slightly,  and  had  never 
found  her  interesting.  I  had  always  believed  her  to  be  con- 
ventional and  commonplace,  without  the  brains  of  the  twins 
or  even  the  mild  spirituality  of  Frank. 

But  I  was  startled  by  her  face  now;  it  was  white  and 
strained,  and  emotion  wavered  pitifully  over  it. 

"Please,"  she  said,  "will  you  hear  my  confession?" 

"I'm  very  sorry  I  told  her,  "but  I  can't.  I'm  still  in 
deacon's  orders." 

She  seemed  disappointed. 

"Oh!  Oh,  dear!  I  didn't  know.   ..." 

I  was  puzzled.  Why  had  she  pitched  on  me?  Hadn't 
she,  I  wondered,  a  regular  director,  or  was  it  her  first  con- 
fession she  wanted  to  make?  I  began  something  about  the 
vicar  being  always  glad.  .  .  .  But  she  stopped  me. 

"No,  please.     It  must  be  you.     There's  a  reason.   .    .    .. 


POTTERISM  157 

Well,  if  you  can't  hear  my  confession,  may  I  tell  you  some- 
thing in  private,  and  get  your  advice?" 

"Of  course,"  I  said. 

"Now,  at  once,  if  you've  time.   .    .    .   It's  very  urgent." 

I  had  time,  and  we  went  into  the  vestry. 

She  sat  down,  and  I  waited  for  her  to  speak.      She  wasn't 
nervous,  or  embarrassed,  as  most  people  are  in  these  inter- 
views.   Two  things  occurred  to  me  about  her;  one  was  that 
she  was,  irt  a  way,  too  far  through,  too  mentally  agitated,  ' 
to  be  embarrassed ;  the  other  was  that  she  was,  quite  un- 
consciously posing  a  little,  behaving  as  the  heroine  of  one  of  \ 
her  mother's  novels  might  have  behaved.     One  knows  the  i 
situation  in  fiction — the  desperate  girl  appealing  out  of  her  ; 
misery  to  the  Christian  priest  for  help.     So  many  women 
have  this  touch   of   melodrama,   this  sense  of  a  situation. 
...   I  believed  that  she  wras,  as  she  sat  there,  in  these  two 
conditions  simultaneously,  exactly  as  I  was  simultaneously 
analysing  her  and  wanting  to  be  of  what  service  I  could. 

She  leant  forward  across  the  vestry  table,  locking  and 
unlocking  her  hands. 

"This  is  quite  private,  isn't  it,"  she  said.  "As  private  as 
if  .  .  .?" 

"Quite,"  I  told  her. 

She  drew  a  long,  shivering  breath,  and  leant  her  forehead 
on  her  clasped  hands. 

"You  know,"  she  said,  so  low  that  I  had  to  bend  forward 
to  catch  it,  "what  people  are  saying — what  my  people  suspect 
about — about  Oliver  Hobart's  death." 

"Yes,  I  know." 

"Well— it  wasn't  Mr.  Gideon." 

"You  know  that?"  I  said  quickly.  And  a  great  relief 
flooded  me.  I  hadn't  known,  until  that  moment,  because 
I  had  driven  it  under,  how  large  a  part  of  my  brain  believed 
that  Gideon  had  perhaps  done  this  thing. 


.158  POTTERISM 

"Yes,"  she  whispered.  "I  know  it.  ...  Because  I  know 
— I  know — who  did  it." 

In  that  moment  I  felt  that  I  knew  too,  and  that  Gideon 
knew,  and  that  I  ought  to  have  guessed  all  along. 

I  said  nothing,  but  waited  for  the  girl's  next  word,  if  she 
had  a  next  word  to  say.  It  wasn't  for  me  to  question  her. 

And  then,  quite  suddenly,  she  gave  a  little  moan  of  misery 
and  broke  into  passionate  tears. 

I  waited  for  a  moment,  then  I  got  up  and  poured  her  out 
a  glass  of  water.  It  must  have  been  pretty  bad  for  her.  It 
must  have  been  pretty  bad  all  this  time,  I  thought,  knowing 
this  thing  about  her  sister. 

She  drank  the  water  and  became  quieter. 

"Do  you  want  to  tell  me  any  more?"  I  asked  her, 
presently. 

"Oh,  I  do,  I  do.  But  it's  so  difficult.  ...  I  don't  know 
how  to  tell  you.  .  .  .  Oh,  God.  ...  It  was  7  that  killed 
him!" 

"Yes?"  I  said  after  a  moment,  gently,  and  without  ap- 
parent surprise.  One  learns  in  parish  work  not  to  start, 
however  much  one  may  be  startled.  I  merely  added  a  legiti- 
mate inquiry.  "Why  was  that?" 

She  gulped.  "I  wanted  to  tell  you  everything.  I  want 
to." 

I  was  sure  she  did.  She  had  reached  the  familiar  pouring- 
out  stage.  It  was  obviously  going  to  be  a  relief  to  her  to 
spread  herself  on  the  subject.  I  am  pretty  well  used  to  being 
told  everything,  and  at  times  a  good  deal  more,  and  have 
learnt  to  discount  much  of  it.  I  looked  away  from  her  and 
prepared  to  listen,  and  to  give  my  mind  to  sifting,  if  I  could, 
the  fact  from  the  fancy  of  her  story.  This  is  a  special  art, 
and  one  which  all  parsons  do  well  to  learn.  I  have  heard 
my  vicar  on  the  subject  of  women's  confessions. 

"Women — women.     Some  of  them  will  invent  any  crime 


POTTERISM  159 

,  | — give  themselves  away  with  both  hands — merely  to  make 
themselves  interesting.  Poor  things,  they  don't  realise  how 
i  tedious  sin  is.  One  has  to  be  on  one's  guard  the  whole  time, 
\  with  that  kind." 

I  deduced  that  Clare  Potter  might  possibly  be  that  kind. 
So  I  listened  carefully,  at  first  neither  believing  nor  disbe- 
lieving. 

"It's  difficult  to  tell  you,"  she  began,  in  a  pathetic,  un- 
steady voice.  "It  hurts,  rather  ..." 

"No,  I  think  not,"  I  corrected  her.    "It's  a  relief,  isn't  it?" 

She  stared  at  me  for  a  moment,  then  went  on,  "Yes,  I 
want  to  tell.  But  it  hurts,  all  the  same." 

I  let  her  have  it  her  own  way;  I  couldn't  press  the  suit. 
She  really  thought  it  did  hurt.  I  perceived  that  she  had, 
like  so  many  people,  a  confused  mind. 

"Go  on,"  I  said. 

"I  must  begin  a  long  way  back.  .  .  .  You  see,  before 
Oliver  iell  in  love  with  Jane,  he  ...  he  cared  a  little  for 
me.  He  really  did,  Mr.  Juke.  And  he  made  me  care  for 
him."  Her  voice  dropped  to  a  whisper. 

This  was  truth.    I  felt  no  doubt  as  to  that. 

"Then  .  .  .  then  Jane  came,  and  took  him  away-  from 
me.  He  fell  in  love  with  her  ...  I  thought  my  heart 
would  break." 

I  didn't  protest  against  the  phrase,  or  ask  her  to  explain 
it,  because  she  was  unhappy.  But  I  wish  people  wouldn't 
use  it,  because  I  don't  know,  and  they  don't  know  what  they 
mean  by  it.  "I  thought  I  should  be  very  unhappy,"  is  that 
the  meaning?  No,  because  they  are  already  that.  "I  thought 
my  heart — the  physical  organ — would  be  injuriously  affected 
to  the  point  of  rupture."  No;  I  do  not  believe  that  is  what 
they  mean.  Frankly,  I  do  not  know.  There  should  be  a 
dictionary  of  the  phrases  in  common  use. 

However,   it  would  have  been   pedantic  and   unkind  to 


160  POTTERISM 

ask  Miss  Potter,  who  could  probably  explain  no  phrases, 
to  explain  this. 

She  went  on,  crying  a  little  again. 

"I  couldn't  stop  caring  for  him  all  at  once.  How  could 
I?  I  suppose  you'll  despise  me,  Mr.  Juke,  but  I  just  couldn't 
help  going  on  loving  him.  It's  once  and  for  ever  with  me. 
Oh,  I  expect  you  think  it  was  shameful  of  me!" 

"Shameful?  To  love?  No,  why?  It's  human  nature. 
You  had  bad  luck,  that's  all." 

"Oh,  I  did.  .  .  .  Well,  there  it  was,  you  see.  He  was 
married  to  Jane,  and  I  cared  for  him  so  much  that  I  could 
hardly  bear  to  go  to  the  house  and  see  them  together.  .  .  . 
Oh,  it  wasn't  my  fault;  he  made  me  care,  indeed  he  did. 
I'd  never  have  begun  for  myself,  I'm  not  that  sort  of  girl,  I 
never  was,  I  know  some  girls  do  it,  but  I  never  could  have.  I 
suppose  I'm  too  proud  or  something." 

She  paused,  but  I  made  no  comment.  I  never  comment 
on  the  pride  of  which  I  am  so  often  informed  by  those 
who  possess  it. 

She  resumed,  "Well,  it  went  on  and  on,  and  I  didn't 
seem  to  get  to  feel  any  better  about  it.  And  I  hated  Jane. 
Oh,  I  know  that  was  wicked,  of  course." 

As  she  knew  it,  I  again  made  no  comment. 

"And  sometimes  I  think  I  hated  him,  when  he  thought  of 
nothing  but  her  and  never  at  all  of  me.  .  .  .  Well,  some- 
times there  was  trouble  between  them,  because  Jane  would 
do  things  and  go  about  with  people  he  didn't  like.  And 
especially  Mr.  Gideon.  Well,  none  of  us  like  Mr.  Gideon  at 
home,  you  know;  we  think  he's  awful.  He's  so  rude,  and 
has  such  silly  opinions,  and  is  so  conceited  and  unkind.  He's 
been  awfully  rude  to  father's  papers  always.  And  that  horrid 
article  he  had  in  his  silly  paper  about  what  he  called  'Pot- 
terite  Fiction,'  mostly  about  mother's  books — did  you  read 
it?" 


POTTERISM  161 

"Yes.  But  Gideon  didn't  write  it,  you  know.  It  was 
some  one  else." 

"Oh,  well,  it  was  in  his  paper,  anyhow.  And  he  thought 
it.  .  .  .  And,  anyhow,  what  are  books,  to  hurt  people's 
feelings  about?" 

(A  laudable  sentiment,  and  one  which  should  be  illum- 
inated as  a  text  on  the  writing  table  of  every  reviewer.) 

"Oh,  of  course  I  know  he's  a  friend  of  yours,"  she  added. 
"That's  really  why  I  came  to  you.  .  .  .  But  we  none  of 
us  like  him  at  home.  And  Oliver  couldn't  stick  him.  And 
he  begged  Jane  not  to  have  anything  more  to  do  with  him, 
but  she  would.  She  wrote  in  his  paper,  and  she  was  always 
seeing  him.  And  Oliver  got  more  and  more  distrustful  about 
it,  and  I  couldn't  bear  to  see  him  unhappy." 

"No?"  I  questioned. 

She  paused,  checked  by  the  interruption.  Then,  after  a 
moment,  she  said,  "I  suppose  you  mean  I  was  glad  really, 
because  it  came  between  them.  .  .  .  Well,  I  don't  know. 
.  .-  „  Perhaps  J  was,  then.  .  .  .  Well,  wouldn't  any  one 
be?" 

"Most  people,"  I  agreed.    "Yes." 

She  went  on  a  little  less  fluently,  of  which  I  was  glad. 
/  Fluency  and  accuracy  are  a  bad  pair.  I  would  rather  people 
stumbled  and  stammered  out  their  stories  than  poured 
them. 

"And  I  think  he  thought — Oliver  thought — he  began  to 
suspect — that  Mr.  Gideon  was — you  know — in  love  with 
Jane.  And  I  thought  so,  too.  And  he  thought  Jane  was 
careless  not  discouraging  him,  and  seeing  so  much  of  him  and 
all.  But  /  thought  she  was  worse  than  that,  and  encouraged 
him,  and  didn't  care.  .  .  .  Jane  was  always  dreadfully 
selfish,  you  know.  ..." 

"And  .  .  .  that  evening?"  I  prompted  her,  as  she 
paused. 


162  POTTERISM 

"Well,  that  evening,"  she  shuddered  a  little,  and  went  on 
quickly.  "I'd  been  dining  with  a  friend,  and  I  was  tc 
sleep  at  Jane's.  I  got  there  soon  after  ten,  and  no  one  was 
in,  so  I  went  to  my  room  to  take  my  things  off.  Then  I 
heard  Jane  come  in  with  Mr.  Gideon.  They  went  upstairs 
to  the  drawing-room,  and  I  heard  them  talking  there.  My 
door  was  a  little  open,  and  I  heard  what  they  said.  And 
he  said  ..." 

"Perhaps,"  I  suggested,  "you'd  better  not  tell  me  what 
they  said,  since  they  thought  they  were  alone.  What  do 
you  think?" 

"Oh,  very  well.  There's  no  harm.  I  thought  I'd  better 
tell  you  everything.  But  as  you  like."  She  was  a  little 
disappointed,  but  picked  herself  up  and  continued. 

"Well,  then,  I  heard  Oliver  coming  upstairs,  and  he 
stopped  at  the  drawing-room  door  for  a  moment  before  they 
saw  him,  I  think,  because  he  didn't  speak  quite  at  once.  Then 
he  said,  'Good  evening,'  and  they  said,  'Hallo,'  and  they  all 
began  to  be  nasty — in  their  voices  you  know.  He  said  he'd 
obviously  come  home  before  he  was  expected,  and  then  Jane 
went  upstairs,  pretending  nothing  was  the  matter — Jane 
never  bothers  about  anything — and  I  heard  Mr.  Gideon  come 
up  to  Oliver  and  ask  him  what  he  meant  by  that.  And 
they  talked  just  outside  my  door,  and  they  were  very  dis- 
agreeable, but  I  suppose  you  don't  want  me  to  tell  you  what 
they  said,  so  I  won't.  Anyhow  it  wasn't  much,  only  Oliver 
gave  Mr.  Gideon  to  understand  he  wasn't  to  come  there 
any  more,  and  Mr.  Gideon  said  he  certainly  had  no  inten« 
tion  of  doing  so.  Oh,  yes,  and  he  said,  'Damn  you'  rather 
loud.  And  then  he  went  downstairs  and  left  the  house.  I 
heard  the  door  shut  after  him,  then  I  came  out  of  my  room, 
and  there  was  Oliver  standing  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  looking 
as  if  he  didn't  see  anything.  He  didn't  seem  to  see  me,  even. 
I  couldn't  bear  it,  he  was  so  white  and  angry  and  thinking 


POTTERISM  163 

of  nothing  but  Jane,  who  wasn't  worth  thinking  about, 
because  she  didn't  care.  .  .  .  And  then  ...  I  lost  my 
head.  I  think  I  was  mad.  .  .  .I'd  felt  awfully  queer  for 
a  long  time.  ...  I  couldn't  bear  it  any  more,  his  being 
unhappy  about  Jane  and  not  even  seeing  me.  I  went  up  to 
him  and  said,  'Oliver,  I'm  glad  you've  got  rid  of  that  horrid 
man.' 

"He  stared  at  me  and  still  didn't  seem  to  see  me.  That 
somehow  made  me  furious.  I  said,  'Jane's  much  too  fond 
of  him.  .  .  .  She's  always  with  him  now.  .  .  .  They 
spent  this  evening  together,  you  know,  and  came  home  to- 
gether.' 

"Then  he  seemed  to  wake  up,  and  he  looked  at  me  with 
a  look  I  hadn't  ever  seen  before,  and  it  was  as  if  the  world 
was  at  an  end,  because  I  saw  he  hated  me  for  saying  that. 
And  he  said,  'Kindly  let  my  affairs  and  Jane's  alone,'  in  a 
horrible,  sharp,  cold  voice.  I  couldn't  bear  it.  It  seemed  to 
kill  something  in  me;  my  love  for  him,  perhaps.  I  went 
first  cold  then  hot,  and  I  was  crazy  with  anger ;  I  pushed  him 
back  out  of  the  way  to  let  me  pass — I  pushed  him  suddenly, 
and  so  hard  that  he  lost  his  balance.  .  .  .  Oh,  you  know 
the  rest.  .  .  .  He  was  standing  at  the  top  of  those  awful 
stairs — why  are  people  allowed  to  make  stairs  like  that? — 
and  he  reeled  and  fell  backwards.  .  .  .  Oh,  dear,  oh,  dear, 
and  you  know  the  rest.  ..." 

She  was  sobbing  bitterly  now. 

"Yes,  yes.  I  know  the  rest,"  and  I  said  no  more  for 
a  time. 

There  was  no  more  question  in  my  mind  as  to  the  truth 
of  this  story.  Its  truth  was  apparent.  I  was  only  con- 
sidering two  things — how  best  to  help  this  girl,  and  how 
to  get  Gideon  out  of  the  mess  as  quietly  and  quickly  as 
possible. 

"Oh,  God,"  she  sobbed.  "I've  not  had  a  moment's  peace 


164  POTTERISM 

since  ...  I  loved  him,  and  I  killed  him.  ...  I  let 
them  think  it  was  an  accident.  ...  It  was  as  if  I  was 
gagged,  I  couldn't  speak.  And  after  a  bit,  when  it  had  all 
settled  down,  there  didn't  seem  to  be  any  reason  why  I 
should  say  anything.  ...  I  never  thought,  truly  I  never 
thought,  that  they'd  ever  suspect  some  one  else.  .  .  .  And 
then,  a  little  while  ago,  I  heard  mother  saying  something  to 
some  one  about  Mr.  Gideon,  and  last  night  Katherine  Varick 
came  and  told  Jane  people  were  saying  it  everywhere.  And 
this  morning  there  was  that  piece  in  the  Haste.  .  .  .  Oh ! 
what  shall  I  dof' 

"You  don't  really,"  I  said,  "feel  any  doubt  about  that. 
Do  you?" 

She  lifted  her  wet,  puckered  face  and  stared  at  me,  and 
I  saw  that,  for  the  moment  at  least,  she  was  not  thinking 
of  herself  at  all,  but  only  of  her  tragedy  and  her  problem. 

"You  mean,"  she  whispered,  "that  I  must  tell   ..." 

"It's  rather  obvious,  isn't  it,"  I  said  gently,  because  I 
was  horribly  sorry  for  her. 

"And  be  tried  for  murder — or  manslaughter?  Appear  in 
the  docks?"  she  quavered,  her  frightened  brown  eyes  large 
and  round. 

"I  don't  think  it  would  come  to  that.  All  you  have 
to  do  is  to  tell  your  parents.  Your  father  is  responsible 
for  the  stuff  in  the  papers,  and  your  mother,  I  gather,  for 
the  spreading  of  the  story  personally.  Your  confession  to 
them  would  stop  that.  They  would  withdraw,  retract  what 
they  have  said,  and  say  publicly  that  they  were  mistaken, 
that  the  evidence  they  thought  they  had  had  been  proved 
false.  Then  it  would  be  generally  assumed  again  that  the 
thing  was  an  accident,  and  the  talk  would  die  down.  No  one 
need  ever  know  but  your  parents  and  myself.  I  am  bound, 
and  they  would  choose,  not  to  repeat  it  to  any  one." 

"Not  to  Jane?"  she  questioned. 


POTTERISM  165 

"Well,  what  does  Jane  think  at  present?  Does  she 
suspect  ?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  don't  know.  Jane's  been  rather 
queer  all  day.  .  .  .  I've  sometimes  thought  she  suspected 
something.  Only  if  she  did,  I  believe  she'd  have  told  me. 
Jane  doesn't  consider  people's  feelings,  you  know;  she'd 
say  anything,  however  awful.  .  .  .  Only  she's  deep,  too. 
Not  like  me.  I  must  have  things  out;  she'll  keep  them 
dark,  sometimes.  .  .  .  No,  I  don't  know  what  Jane  thinks, 
really  I  don't." 

I  didn't  know  either.  Another  thing  I  didn't  know  was 
•what  Gideon  thought.  They  might  both  suspect  the  truth, 
and  this  might  have  tied  Gideon's  hands;  he  might  have 
shrunk  from  defending  himself  at  the  expense  of  a  frightened, 
unhappy  girl  and  Jane's  sister. 

But  this  wasn't  my  business. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "you  may  find  you  have  to  tell  Jane.  Per- 
haps, in  a  way,  you  owe  it  to  Jane  to  tell  her.  But 
the  essential  thing  is  that  you  should  tell  your  parents. 
That's  quite  necessary,  of  course.  And  you  should  do  it 
at  once — this  evening,  directly  you  get  home.  Every  minute 
lost  makes  the  thing  worse.  I  think  you  should  catch  the 
next  train  back  to  Potter's  Bar.  You  see,  what  you  say 
may  affect  what  is  in  to-morrow  morning's  papers.  This  thing 
has  to  be  stopped  at  once,  before  further  damage  is  done." 

She  looked  at  me  palely,  her  hands  twisting  convulsively 
in  and  out  of  each  other.  I  saw  her,  for  all  her  seven  or 
eight  and  twenty  years,  as  a  weak,  frightened  child,  igno- 
rant, like  a  child,  of  the  mischief  she  was  doing  to  others, 
concerned,  like  a  child,  with  her  own  troubles  and  fears 
and  the  burdens  on  her  own  conscience. 

"Oh,"  she  whimpered,  "I  daren't.  .  .  .  All  this  time 
I've  said  nothing.  .  .  .  How  can  I,  now?  It's  too  awful 
.  too  difficult  .  ." 


166  POTTERISM 

I  looked  at  her  in  silence. 

"What's  your  proposal,  then?"  I  asked  her.    I  may  have 
sounded  hard  and  unkind,  but  I  didn't  feel  so;  I  was  im- 
mensely sorry  for  her.    Only,  I  believe  a  certain  amount  of  S 
/  hard  practicality  is  the  only  wholesome  treatment  to  apply  to  / 
I  emotional  and  wordy  people.     One  has  to  make  them  face  \ 
I  facts,  put  everything  in  terms  of  action.     If  she  had  come  ; 
I  to  me  for  advice,  she  should  have  it.     If  she  had  come  to 
\  me  merely  to  get  relief  by  unburdening  her  tortured  con- 
)  science,  she  should  find  the  burden  doubled  unless  she  took  * 
]  the  only  possible  way  out. 

She  looked  this  way  and  that,  with  scared,  hunted  eyes. 
"I  thought  perhaps  .    .    .  they  might  be  made  to  think 
it  was  an  accident  ..." 
"How?" 

"Well,  you  see,  I  could  tell  them  that  he'd  left  the  house — 
Mr.  Gideon,  I  mean — before  Oliver  .  .  .  fell.  That  would 
be  true.  I  could  say  I  heard  Mr.  Gideon  go,  and  heard 
Oliver  fall  afterwards.  That's  what  I  thought  I'd  say. 
Then  he'd  be  cleared,  wouldn't  he?" 

"Why  haven't  you,"  I  asked,  "said  this  already,  directly 
you  knew  that  Gideon  was  suspected?" 

"I — I  didn't  like,"  she  faltered.  "I  wanted  to  ask  some 
one's  advice.  I  wanted  to  know  what  you  thought." 

I  looked  at  her  thoughtfully.  What  she  hadn't  liked  to 
do,  I  divined,  was  to  go  to  her  parents  with  this  partial  half- 
true  tale.  She  could  keep  silent,  but  she  hadn't  been  able 
to  be  Jesuitical  to  that  extent.  She  had  to  pour  out  the 
whole  tragic  truth,  if  she  broke  silence  at  all.  That  was 
a  hopeful  thing,  it  seemed  to  me — something  to  work  on. 

"I've  told  you,"  I  answered  her,  "what  I  think.  It's 
more  than  thinking.  I  know.  You've  got  to  tell  them  the 
exact  truth.  There's  really  no  question  about  it.  You 


POTTERISM  167 

couldn't  go  to  them  with  a  half  true  story  of  having  heard 
the  fall  .  .  .  could  you?" 

"I  don't  know,"  she  sighed,  pinching  her  ringers  together 
nervously. 

"You  do  know.  It  would  be  impossible.  You  couldn't 
lie  about  a  thing  like  that.  You've  got  to  tell  the  truth. 
.  .  .  Not  all  you've  told  me,  if  you  don't  want  to — but 
simply  that  you  pushed  him,  in  impatience,  not  meaning 
to  hurt  him,  and  that  he  fell.  It's  quite  simple  really,  if 
you  do  it  at  once.  It  won't  be  if  you  leave  it  until  the  thing 
has  gone  further  and  Gideon  is  perhaps  arrested.  You'd 
have  to  tell  the  public  the  story  then.  Now  it's  easy  .  .  . 
No,  I  beg  your  pardon,  it's  not  easy ;  I  know  that.  It's  very 
hard.  But  there  it  is;  it's  got  to  be  done,  and  done  at  once." 

She  listened  in  silence,  drooping  and  huddled  together. 
I  was  reminded  pitifully  of  some  soft  little  animal  caught  in 
a  trap  and  paralysed  with  fear. 

"Oh,"  she  gasped,  "I  must,  I  must,  I  know  I  must.  But 
it's  difficult  ..." 

I'm  not  going  to  repeat  the  things  I  said.    They  were  the 

usual  truisms,  and  one  has  to  say  them.    The  complex  part 

of  the  business  was  that  at  one  moment  I  was  simply  persuad- 

•  ling  a  frightened  and  reluctant  girl  to  do  the  straight  and 

/  /decent  and  difficult  thing,  and  at  the  next  I  was  wasting 

\i  words  on  an  egotist  (we're  all  that,  after  all)  who  was  sub- 

f  consciously  enjoying  the  situation  and  wanting  to  prolong  it. 

/  One  feels  the  difference  always,  and  it  is  that  duplicity  of 

\    aim  in  seekers  after  advice  that  occasionally  makes  one  cruel 

and  hard,  because  it  seems  the  only  profitable  method. 

It  must  have  been  ten  minutes  before  I  wrung  out  of  her  a 
faltering  but  definite,  "I'll  do  it." 

Then  I  stood  up.    There  was  no  more  time  tc  be  wasted. 

"What  train  can  you  get?"  I  asked  her. 

"I   don't  know.   .    .    .  The  7:30,  perhaps."     She  rose, 


i68  POTTERISM 

too,  her  little  wet  crumpled  handkerchief  still  in  her  hand.  I 
saw  she  had  something  else  to  say. 

"I've  been  so  miserable  ..." 

"Well,  of  course." 

"It's  been  on  my  mind  so   .    .    ." 

What  things  people  of  this  type  give  themselves  the 
trouble  of  saying! 

"Well,  it  will  be  off  your  mind  now,"  I  suggested. 

"Will  it?  But  it  will  still  be  there — the  awful  thing 
I  did.  I  ought  to  confess  it,  oughtn't  I,  and  get  absolution? 
I  do  make  my  confession,  you  know,  but  I've  never  told  this, 
not  properly.  I  know  I  ought  to  have  done,  but  I  couldn't 
get  it  out  ever — I  put  it  so  that  the  priest  couldn't  under- 
stand. I  suppose  it  was  awfully  mean  and  cowardly  of  me, 
and  I  ought  to  confess  it  properly." 

"Well,  I  should  say  you  ought.  Why  make  confessions 
at  all  if  you  don't  make  them  properly?" 

She  only  gave  her  little  soft  quivering  sigh.  It  was  too 
difficult  a  question  for  her  to  answer.  And,  after  all,  a 
foolish  one  to  ask.  Why  do  we  do  all  the  hundreds  of  things 
that  we  don't  do  properly?  Reasons  are  many  and  motives 
mixed. 

I  walked  with  her  to  King's  Cross  bus  and  saw  her  into 
it.  We  shook  hands  as  we  parted,  and  hers  was  hot  and 
clinging.  I  saw  that  she  was  all  tense  and  strung  up. 

"Good-bye,"  she  whispered.  "And  thank  you  ever  so 
much  for  being  so  good  to  me.  I'll  do  what  you  told  me 
to-night.  If  it  kills  me,  I  will." 

"That's  good,"  I  returned.  "But  it  won't  kill  you,  you 
know." 

I  smiled  at  her  as  she  got  on  to  the  bus,  and  she  smiled 
pitifully  back. 


POTTERISM  169 


I  walked  back  to  my  rooms.  I  felt  rather  tired,  and  had 
a  queer  feeling  of  having  hammered  away  on  something 
soft  and  yielding  and  yet  unbreakable,  like  putty.  I  felt 
sick  at  having  been  so  hard,  and  sick,  too,  that  she  was 
so  soft.  Sick  of  words,  and  phrases,  and  facile  emotions,  and 
situations,  and  insincerities,  and  Potterisms — and  yet  with  an 
odd  tide  of  hope  surging  through  the  sickness,  because  of 
human  nature,  which  is  so  mixed  that  natural  cowards  will 
sometimes  take  a  steep  and  hard  way  where  they  might 
take  an  easy  one,  and  because  we  all,  in  the  middle  of  our 
egotism  and  vanity  and  self-seeking,  are  often  sorry  for 
what  we  have  done.  Really  sorry,  beneath  all  the  cheap 
penitence  which  leads  nowhere.  So  sorry  that  we  some- 
times cannot  bear  it  any  more,  and  will  break  up  our  own 
lives  to  make  amends.  .  .  . 

And  if,  at  the  same  time,  we  watch  our  sorrow  and  our 
amends,  and  see  it  as  drama  and  as  interesting — well,  after 
all,  it  is  drama  and  it  is  interesting,  so  why  not?  We  can't 
all  be  clear  and  steely  unsentimentalists  like  Katherine 
Varick.  One  has  to  learn  to  bear  sentimentalism.  In 
parishes  (which  are  the  world)  one  has  to  endure  it,  accept 
it.  It  is  part  of  the  general  muddle  and  mess. 


I  got  a  Daily  Haste  next  morning  early,  together  with  the 
Pink  Pictorial,  the  illustrated  Pinkerton  daily.  I  looked 
through  them  quickly.  There  was  no  reference  to  the  Hobart 
Mystery.  I  was  relieved.  Clare  Potter  had  kept  her  word, 
then — or  anyhow  had  said  enough  to  clear  Gideon  (I 
wasn't  going  further  than  that  about  her;  I  had  done  my 
utmost  to  make  her  do  the  straight  thing  in  the  straight  way, 


170  POTTERISM 

and  must  leave  the  rest  to  her),  and  the  Pinkertons  were 
withdrawing.  They  would  have,  later,  to  withdraw  more 
definitely  than  by  merely  abstaining  from  further  accusation 
(I  intended  to  see  to  that,  if  no  one  else  did),  but  this  was 
a  beginning.  It  was,  no  doubt,  all  that  Pinkerton  had  been 
able  to  arrange  last  night  over  the  telephone. 

It  would  have  interested  me  to  have  been  present  at  that 
interview  between  Clare  and  her  parents.  I  should  like  to 
have  seen  Pinkerton  provided  by  his  innocent  little  daughter 
with  the  sensation  of  his  life,  and  Leila  Yorke,  the  author 
of  Falsely  Accused  forced  to  realise  her  own  abominable 
mischief-making;  forced  also  to  realise  that  her  messages 
from  the  other  side  had  been  as  lacking  in  accuracy  as,  un- 
fortunately, messages  from  this  side,  too,  so  often  are.  I 
hoped  the  affair  Hobart  would  be  a  lesson  to  both  Pinker- 
tons.  But,  like  most  of  the  lessons  set  before  us  in  this 
life,  I  feared  it  would  be  a  lesson  unlearnt. 

Anyhow,  Pinkerton  was  prompt  and  business  like  in  his 
methods.  His  evening  paper  contained  a  paragraph  to  this 
effect : — • 

DEATH  OF  MR.  HOBART 

NOW  CONSIDERED  ACCIDENTAL 

FOUL  PLAY  NOT  SUSPECTED 

"The  investigation  into  the  circumstances  surrounding  the 
sudden  death  of  Mr.  Oliver  Hobart,  the  late  editor  of  the 
Daily  Haste,  have  resulted  in  conclusive  evidence  that  the 
tragedy  was  due  to  Mr.  Hobart's  accidental  stumbling  and 
falling.  His  fall,  which  was  audible  to  the  other  inmates 
of  the  house,  took  place  after  the  departure  of  Mr.  Arthur 
Gideon,  with  whom  he  had  been  talking.  A  statement  to  this 
effect  has  been  made  by  Miss  Clare  Potter,  who  was  staying 
in  the  house  at  the  time,  and  who  was  at  the  time  of  the 
inquest  too  much  prostrated  by  the  shock  to  give  evidence.'' 


POTTERISM  171 

It  was  a  retraction  all  right,  and  all  that  could  be  expected 
of  the  Pinkerton  Press.  In  its  decision  and  emphasis  I  read 
scare.  Good  for  Clare  Potter,  I  thought:  she  must  have 
played  straight,  then. 

I  didn't  give  much  more  thought  just  then  to  the  business. 
I  was  pretty  busy  with  meetings  and  committees,  and  with 
rehearsals  of  A  New  Way  to  pay  Old  Debts,  which  we  were 
playing  to  the  parish  in  a  week.  I  had  stage-managed  it  at 
Oxford  once,  and  had  got  some  of  the  same  people  together, 
and  it  was  going  pretty  well  but  needed  a  good  deal  of 
attention.  I  had,  too,  to  go  away  from  town  for  a  day  or 
two,  on  some  business  connected  with  the  Church  Congress. 
Church  Congresses  keep  an  incredible  number  of  people  busy 
about  them  beforehand;  besides  all  the  management  com- 
mittees and  programmes  and  side-shows,  there  is  the  manage- 
ment of  all  the  people  of  divergent  views  who  won't  meet 
each  other,  such  as  Mr.  George  Lansbury  and  Mr.  Athelstan 
Riley.  (Not  that  this  delicate  task  fell  to  me;  I  was  only 
concerned  with  Life  and  Liberty.) 

On  the  day  after  I  came  back  I  met  Jane  at  the  club,  after 
lunch.  She  came  over  and  sat  down  by  me. 

"Hallo,"  she  said.    "Have  you  been  seeing  the  Haste?' 

"I  have.  It's  been  more  interesting  lately  than  my  own 
paper." 

"Yes.  ...  So  Arthur's  acquitted  without  a  stain  on  his 
character.  Poor  mother's  rather  sick  about  it.  She  thought 
she'd  had  a  Message,  you  know.  That  frightful  Ayres 
woman  had  a  vision  in  a  glass  ball  of  Arthur  knocking 
Oliver  downstairs.  I  expect  you  heard.  Every  one  did. 
.  .  .  Mother  went  round  to  see  her  about  it  the  other  day, 
but  she  still  sticks  to  it.  Poor  mother  doesn't  know  what 
to  make  of  it.  Either  the  ball  lied,  or  the  Ayres  woman 
lied,  or  Clare  is  lying.  She's  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  was  the  Ayres.  So  they've  had  words.  I  expect  they'll 


172  POTTERISM 

make  it  up  before  long.  But  at  present  there's  rather  a  slump 
in  Other  Side  business.  .  .  .  And  she  wrote  a  letter  of 
apology  to  Arthur.  Father  made  her,  he  was  so  afraid 
Arthur  would  bring  a  libel  action." 

"Why  didn't  he?"  I  asked,  wondering,  first,  how  much 
of  the  truth  either  Arthur  or  Jane  had  suspected  all  this 
time,  and,  secondly,  how  much  they  now  knew. 

Jane  looked  at  me  with  her  guarded,  considering  glance. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  don't  mind  your  knowing.  You'd 
better  not  let  on  to  him  that  I  told  you,  though ;  he  mightn't 
like  it.  The  fact  is,  Arthur  thought  I'd  done  it.  He  thought 
it  was  so  because  my  manner  was  so  queer,  as  if  I  was  trying 
to  hush  it  up.  I  was.  You  see,  I  thought  Arthur  had  done 
it.  It  seemed  so  awfully  likely.  Because  I  left  them  quar- 
relling. And  Arthur's  got  an  awfully  bad  temper.  And  his 
manner  was  so  queer.  We  never  talked  it  out,  till  two 
days  ago;  we  avoided  talking  to  each  other  at  all,  almost, 
after  the  first.  But  on  that  first  morning,  when  he  came 
round  to  see  me,  we  somehow  succeeded  in  diddling  one 
another,  because  we  were  each  so  anxious  to  shield  the  other 
and  hush  it  all  up.  .  .  .  Clare  might  have  saved  us  both 
quite  a  lot  of  worrying  if  she'd  spoken  out  at  once  and  said 
it  was  ...  an  accident." 

Jane's  voice  was  so  unemotional,  her  face  and  manner  so 
calm,  that  she  is  a  very  dark  horse  sometimes.  I  couldn't 
tell  for  certain  whether  she  had  nearly  instead  of  "an  acci> 
dent"  said  "her."  or  whether  she  had  spoken  in  good  faith, 
I  couldn't  tell  how  much  she  knew,  or  had  been  told,  or 
guessed. 

I  said,  "I  suppose  she  didn't  realise  till  lately  that  any 
one  was  likely  to  be  suspected,"  and  Jane  acquiesced. 

"Clare's  funny,"  she  said  after  a  moment. 

"People  are,"  I  generalised. 

"She  has  a  muddled  mind,"  said  Jane. 


POTTERISM  173 

"People  often  have," 

"You  never  know,"  said  Jane  thoughtfully,  "how  much 
to  believe  of  what  she  says." 

"No?     I  dare  say  she  doesn't  quite  know  herself." 

"She  does  not,"  said  Jane.    "Poor  old  Clare." 

We  necessarily  left  it  at  that,  since  Jane  didn't,  of  course, 
mean  to  tell  me  what  story  Clare  had  told  of  that  evening's 
happenings,  and  I  couldn't  tell  Jane  the  one  Clare  had  told 
me.  I  didn't  imagine  I  should  ever  be  wiser  than  I  was 
now  on  the  subject,  and  it  certainly  wasn't  my  business  any 
more. 

When  I  met  Clare  Potter  by  chance,  a  week  or  two  later, 
on  the  steps  of  the  National  Gallery  with  another  girl,  she 
flushed,  bowed,  and  passed  me  quickly.  That  was  natural 
enough,  after  our  last  interview. 

Queer,  that  those  two  girls  should  be  sisters.  They  were 
an  interesting  study  to  me.  Clare,  shallow,  credulous,  weak 
in  the  intelligence,  conventional,  emotional,  sensitive,  of  the 
eternal  type  of  orthodox  and  timid  woman,  with  profound 
powers  of  passion,  and  that  touch  of  melodrama,  that  sense 
of  a  situation,  that  might  lead  her  along  strange  paths.  .  .  . 
And  Jane,  level-headed,  clear-brained,  hard,  calm,  straight- 
thinking,  cynical,  an  egotist  to  her  finger-tips,  knowing  what 
she  wanted  and  going  for  it,  tough  in  the  conscience,  and 
ignorant  of  love  except  in  its  crudest  form  of  desire  for  the 
people  and  things  which  ministered  to  her  personal  hap- 
piness. .  .  . 

It  struck  me  that  the  two  represented  two  sides  of  Pot- 
terism — the  intellectual  and  moral.  Clare  the  ignorant, 
muddle-headed  sentimentalist;  Jane,  reacting  against  this, 
but  on  her  part  grabbing  and  exploiting.  Their  attitude 
towards  truth  (that  bug-bear  of  Potterism)  was  typical; 
Clare  wouldn't  see  it ;  Jane  saw  it  perfectly  clearly,  and 
would  reject  it  without  hesitation  if  it  suited  her  book. 


174  POTTERISM 

i  Clare  was  like  her  mother,  only  with  better,  simpler  stuff 
in  her ;  Jane  was  rather  like  her  father  in  her  shrewd  native 
wit,  only,  while  he  was  vulgar  in  his  mind,  she  was  only 
vulgar  in  her  soul. 

Of  one  thing  I  was  sure:  they  would  both  be,  on  the 
whole,  satisfied  with  life,  Jane  because  she  would  get  what 
she  wanted,  Clare  because  she  would  be  content  with  little. , 
Clare  would  inevitably  marry ;  as  inevitably,  she  would  love 
i    her  husband  and  her  children,  and  come  to  regard  her  pas- 
j   sion  for  Oliver  Hobart  and  its  tragic  sequel  as  a  romantic 
S  episode  of  girlhood,  a  sort  of  sowing  of  wild  oats  before 
i  the  real  business  of  life  began.     And  Jane  would,  I  pre- 
sumed, ultimately  marry  Gideon,  who  was  too  good  for  her, 
altogether  too  fine  and  too  good.     For  Gideon  was  direct 
and  keen  and  passionate,  and  loved  and  hated  cleanly,  and 
thought  finely  and  acutely.    Gideon  wasn't  greedy;  he  took 
life  and  its  pleasures  and  triumphs  and  amusements  in  his 
stride,  as  part  of  the  day's  work;  he  didn't  seek  them  out 
for  their  own  sakes.    Gideon  lived  for  causes  and  beliefs  and 
ideals.    He  was  temperamentally  Christian,  though  he  didn't 
happen  to  believe  Christian  dogma.     He  had  his  alloy,  like 
other  people,  of  ambition  and  selfishness,  but  so  much  less 
than,  for  instance,  I  have,  that  it  is  absurd  that  he  should  be 
the  agnostic  and  I  the  professing  Christian. 


The  Christian  Church.     Sometimes  one  feels  that  it  is  a 

.   fantasy,  the  flaming  ideal  one  has  for  it.    One  thinks  of  it 

j   as  a  fire,  a  sword,  an  army  with  banners  marching  against 

dragons;  one  doesn't  see  how  such  power  can  be  withstood, 

be  the  dragons  never  so  strong.   And  then  one  looks  round 

and  sees  it  instead  as  a  frail  organisation  of  the  lame,  the 

halt,  and  the  blind,  a  tepid  organisation  of  the  satisfied, 


POTTERISM  175 

I  the  bourgeois,  the  conventionally  genteel,  a  helpless  organi- 

(  sation  of  the  ignorant,  the  half-witted,  the  stupid ;  an  organi- 

/  sation  full  to  the  brim  of  cant,  humbug,  timid  orthodoxy, 

unreality,  self-content,  and  all  kinds  of  Potterism — and  one 

]    doesn't  see  how  it  can  overcome  anything  whatever. 

What  is  the  truth?  Where,  between  these  two  poles, 
does  the  actual  church  stand  ?  Or  does  it  for  most  of  us  its 
members,  swing  to  and  from  between  them,  touching  now 
one,  now  the  other?  A  Potterite  church — yes;  because  we 
are  most  of  us  Potterites.  An  anti-Potterite  church — yes, 
again ;  because  at  its  heart  is  something  sharp  and  clean  and 
fine  and  direct,  like  a  sword,  which  will  not  let  us  be  con- 
tented Potterites,  but  which  is  forever  goading  us  out  of 
ourselves,  pricking  us  out  of  our  trivial  satisfactions  and  our 
egotistic  discontents. 

I  suppose  the  fact  is  that  the  Church  can  only  work  on 
the  material  it  finds,  and  do  a  little  here  and  a  little  there. 
It:would  be  a  sword  in  the  hands  of  such  men  as  Gideon; 
on  the  other  hand  it  can't  do  much  with  the  Clare  Potters. 
The  real  thing  frightens  them  if  ever  they  see  it;  the  sham 
thing  they  mould  to  their  own  liking,  till  it  is  no  more  than 
a  comfortable  shelter  from  the  storms  of  life.  It  is  the 
world's  Potters  who  have  taken  the  Church  and  spoilt  it, 
degraded  it  to  the  poor  dull  thing  it  is.  It  is  the  Potterism 
in  all  of  us  which  at  every  turn  checks  and  drags  it  down. 
Personally,  I  can  forgive  Potterism  everything  but  that. 

What  is  one  to  do  about  it? 


PART  VI 

TOLD  BY  R.  M. 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  END  OF  A  POTTER  MELODRAMA 


WHILE  Clare  talked  to  Juke  in  the  vestry,  Jane  talked 
to  her  parents  at  Potter's  Bar.  She  was  trying  to 
make  them  drop  their  campaign  against  Gideon.  But  she 
had  no  success.  Lady  Pinkerton  said,  "The  claims  of  Truth  k 
are  inexorable.  Truth  is  a  hard  god  to  follow,  and  often  } 
demands  the  sacrifice  of  one's  personal  feelings."  Lord 
Pinkerton  said,  "I  think,  now  the  thing  has  gone  so  far, 
it  had  better  be  thoroughly  sifted.  If  Gideon  is  innocent, 
it  is  only  due  to  him.  If  he  is  guilty,  it  is  due  to  the  public. 
You  must  remember  that  he  edits  a  paper  which  has  a  certain 
circulation;  small,  no  doubt,  but  still,  a  circulation.  He  is 
not  altogether  like  a  private  and  irresponsible  person," 

Lady  Pinkerton  remarked  that  we  are  none  of  us  that, 
we  all  owe  a  duty  to  society,  and  so  forth. 

Then  Clare  came  in,  just  as  they  had  finished  dinner. 
She  would  not  have  any.  Her  face  was  red  and  swollen 
with  crying.  She  said  she  had  something  to  tell  them  at 
once,  that  would  not  keep*  a  moment.  Mr.  Gideon  mustn't 
be  suspected  any  more  of  having  killed  Oliver,  for  she  had 
done  it  herself,  after  Mr.  Gideon  had  left  the  house. 

They  did  not  believe  her  at  £rst.    She  was  hysterical,  and 

176 


POTTERISM  I7T 

they  all  knew  Clare.  But  she  grew  more  circumstantial 
about  it,  till  they  began  to  believe  it.  After  all,  they 
reasoned,  it  explained  her  having  been  so  completely  knocked 
over  by  the  catastrophe. 

Jane  asked  her  why  she  had  done  it.  She  said  she  had 
only  meant  to  push  him  away  from  her,  and  he  had  fallen. 

Lady  Pinkerton  said,  "Push  him  away,  my  dear!  Then 
was  he  .  .  ." 

Was  he  too  close,  she  meant.  Clare  cried  and  did  not 
answer.  Lady  Pinkerton  concluded  that  Oliver  had  been 
trying  to  kiss  Clare,  and  that  Clare  had  repulsed  him.  Jane 
knew  that  Lady  Pinkerton  thought  this,  and  so  did  Clare. 
Jane  thought  "Clare  means  us  to  think  that.  That  doesn't 
mean  it's  true.  Clare  hasn't  got  what  Arthur  calls  a  grip 
on  facts." 

Lord  Pinkerton  said,  "This  is  very  painful,  my  dears; 
very  painful  indeed.  Jane,  my  dear  .  .  ." 

He  meant  that  Jane  was  to  go  away,  because  it  was  even 
more  painful  for  her  than  for  the  others.  But  Jane  didn't 
go.  It  wasn't  painful  for  Jane  really.  She  felt  hard  and 
cold,  and  as  if  nothing  mattered.  She  was  angry  with  Clare 
for  crying  instead  of  explaining  what  had  happened. 

Lady  Pinkerton  said,  passing  her  hand  over  her  forehead 
in  the  tired  way  she  had  and  shutting  her  eyes,  "My  dear, 
you  are  over-wrought.  You  don't  know  what  you  are  saying. 
You  will  be  able  to  tell  us  more  clearly  in  the  morning." 

But  Clare  said  they  must  believe  her  now,  and  Lord 
Pinkerton  must  telephone  up  to  the  Haste  and  have  the  stuff 
about  the  Hobart  Mystery  stopped. 

"My  poor  child,"  said  Lady  Pinkerton,  "what  has  made 
you  suddenly,  so  long  after,  tell  us  this  terrible  story?" 

Clare  sobbed  that  she  hadn't  been  able  to  bear  it  on  her 
mind  any  more,  and  also  that  she  hadn't  known  till  lately 
that  Gideon  was  suspected. 


178  POTTERISM 

Lord  and  Lady  Pinkerton  looked  at  each  other,  wondering 
what  to  believe,  then  at  Jane,  wishing  she  was  gone,  so 
that  they  could  ask  Clare  more  about  it.  Jane  said,  "Don't 
mind  me.  I  don't  mind  hearing  ab.out  it."  Jane  meant 
to  stay.  She  thought  that  if  she  was  gone  they  would 
persuade  Clare  she  had  dreamed  it  all  and  that  it  had  been 
really  Gideon  after  all. 

Jane  asked  Clare  why  she  had  pushed  Oliver,  thinking  that 
she  ought  to  explain,  and  not  cry.  But  still  Clare  only 
cried,  and  at  last  said  she  couldn't  ever  tell  any  one.  Lady 
Pinkerton  turned  pink,  and  Lord  Pinkerton  walked  up  and 
down  and  said,  "Tut  tut,"  and  it  was  more  obvious  than 
ever  what  Clare  meant. 

She  added,  "But  I  never  meant,  indeed  I  never  meant, 
to  hurt  him.  He  just  fell  back,  and  .  .  ." 

"Was  killed,"  Jane  finished  for  her.  Jane  thought  Clare 
was  like  their  mother  in  trying  to  avoid  plain  words  for  dis- 
agreeable things. 

Clare  cried  and  cried.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "I've  not  had  a 
happy  moment  since,"  which  was  as  nearly  true  as  these 
excessive  statements  ever  are. 

Lady  Pinkerton  tried  to  calm  her,  and  said,  "My  poor, 
dear  child,  you  don't  know  what  you  are  saying.  You 
must  go  to  bed  now,  and  tell  us  in  the  morning,  when  you 
are  more  yourself." 

Clare  didn't  go  to  bed  until  Lord  Pinkerton  had  promised 
to  ring  up  the  Haste.  Then  she  went,  with  Lady  Pinkerton, 
who  was  crying  too  now,  because  she  was  beginning  to 
believe  the  story. 


Jane  didn't  know  what  she  believed.     She  didn't  believe 
what  Clare  had  implied — that  Oliver  had  tried  to  kiss  her. 


POTTERISM  ifg 

Because  Oliver  hadn't  been  like  that;  it  wasn't  the  sort  of 
thing  he  did.  Jane  thought  it  caddish  of  Clare  to  have 
tried  to  make  them  think  that  of  him.  But  she  might,  Jane 
thought,  have  been  angry  with  him  about  something  else ;  she 
might  have  pushed  him.  ...  Or  she  might  not;  she  might 
be  imagining  or  inventing  the  whole  thing.  You  never  knew, 
with  Clare. 

If  this  was  true,  Jane  thought,  she  had  been  a  fool  about 
Arthur.  But,  if  he  hadn't  done  it,  why  had  he  been  so  queer? 
Why  had  he  avoided  her,  and  been  so  odd  and  ashamed  from 
the  first  morning  on? 

Perhaps,  thought  Jane,  he  had  suspected  Clare. 

She  would  see  him  to-morrow  morning,  and  ask  him. 


Jane  saw  Gideon  next  day.  She  rang  him  up,  and  he 
came  over  to  Hampstead  after  tea. 

It  was  the  first  time  Jane  had  seen  him  alone  for  more 
than  a  month.  He  looked  thin  and  ill. 

Jane  loved  him.  She  had  loved  him  through  everything. 
He  might  have  killed  Oliver;  it  made  no  difference  to  her 
caring  for  him. 

But  she  hoped  he  hadn't. 

He  came  into  the  drawing-room.  Jane  remembered  that 
other  night,  when  Oliver — poor  Oliver — had  been  vexed  to 
find  him  there.  Poor  Oliver.  Poor  Oliver.  But  Jane 
couldn't  really  care.  Not  really,  only  gently,  and  in  a  way 
that  didn't  hurt.  Not  as  if  Gideon  were  dead  and  shut 
away  from  everything.  Not  as  if  she  herself  were. 

Jane  didn't  pretend.  As  Lady  Pinkerton  would  say,  the 
claims  of  Truth  were  inexorable. 

Gideon  came  in  quickly,  looking  grave  and  worried,  as  if 
he  had  something  on  his  mind,. 


i8o  POTTERISM 

Jane  said,  "Arthur,  please  tell  me.  Did  you  knock  Oliver 
down  that  night?" 

He  stood  and  stared  at  her,  looking  astonished  and 
startled. 

Then  he  said,  slowly,  "Oh,  I  see.  You  mean,  am  I  going 
to  admit  that  I  did,  when  I  am  accused.  ...  If  there's  no 
other  way  out,  I  am.  ...  It  will  be  all  right,  Jane,"  he 
said  very  gently.  "You  needn't  be  afraid." 

Jane  didn't  understand  him. 

"Then  you  did  it,"  she  said,  and  sat  down.  She  felt 
sick,  and  her  head  swam. 

Gideon  stood  over  her,  tall  and  stooping,  biting  the  nail 
of  his  middle  finger. 

"You  see,"  Jane  said,  "I'd  begun  to  hope  last  night  that 
you  hadn't  done  it  after  all." 

"What  are  you  talking  about?"  he  asked. 

Jane  said,  "Clare  told  us  that  it  happened — that  he  fell- 
after  you  had  left  the  house.  So  I  hoped  she  might  be 
speaking  the  truth,  and  that  you  hadn't  done  it  after  all. 
But  if  you  did,  we  must  go  on  thinking  of  ways  out." 

"If — I — did,"  Gideon  said  after  her  slowly.  "You  know 
I  didn't,  Jane.  Why  are  you  talking  like  this?  What's 
the  use,  when  I  know,  and  you  know,  and  you  know  that 
I  know,  the  truth  about  it?  It  can  do  no  good." 

He  was,  for  the  first  time,  stern  and  angry  with  her. 

"The  truth?"  Jane  said.  "I  wish  you'd  tell  it  me, 
Arthur." 

The  truth.  If  Gideon  told  her  anything,  it  would  be 
the  truth,  she  knew.  He  wasn't  like  Clare,  who  couldn't. 

But  he  only  looked  at  her  oddly,  and  didn't  speak.  Jane 
looked  back  into  his  eyes,  trying  to  read  his  mind,  and  so  for 
a  moment  he  stared  down  at  her  and  she  stared  up  at  him. 

Jane  perceived  that  he  had  not  done  it.    Had  he,  then, 


POTTERISM  181 

guessed  all  this  time  that  Clare  had,  and  been  trying  to 
shield  her? 

Then,  slowly,  his  face,  which  had  been  frowning  and 
tense,  changed  and  broke  up. 

"Good  God !"  he  said.  "Tell  me  the  truth,  Jane.  It  was 
you,  wasn't  it?" 

Then  Jane  understood. 

She  said,  "You  thought  it  was  me.  .  .  .  And  I  thought  it 
was  you !  Is  it  me  you've  been  so  ashamed  of  all  this  time 
then,  not  yourself?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  still  staring  at  her.  "Of  course.  ...  It 
wasn't  you,  then.  .  .  .  And  you  thought  it  was  me?  .  .  . 
But  how  could  you  think  that,  Jane?  I'd  have  told;  I 
wouldn't  have  been  such  a  silly  fool  as  to  sneak  away  and 
say  nothing.  You  might  have  known  that.  You  must  have 
had  a  pretty  poor  opinion  of  me,  to  think  I'd  do  that.  .  .  . 
Good  lord,  how  you  must  have  loathed  me  all  this  time !" 

"No,  I  haven't.     Have  you  loathed  me,  then?" 

He  said  quickly,  "That's  different,"  but  he  didn't  explain 
why. 

After  a  moment  he  said,  "It  was  just  an  accident  then, 
after  all." 

"Yes  .  .  .  Clare  heard  him  fall  soon  after  you  left  the 
house.  .  .  .  She's  only  just  told  about  it,  because  you  were 
being  suspected.  But  I  never  know  whether  to  believe  Clare ; 
she's  such  a  gumph.  I  had  to  ask  you.  .  .  .  What  made 
you  suspect  me,  by  the  way?" 

"Your  manner,  that  first  morning.  You  dragged  me  into 
the  dining-room,  do  you  remember,  and  talked  about  how 
they  all  thought  it  was  an  accident,  and  no  one  would  guess 
if  we  were  careful,  and  I  wasn't  to  say  anything.  What  else 
was  I  to  think?  It  was  really  your  own  fault." 

Jane  said,  "Well,  anyhow,  we're  quits.    We've  both  spent 


1 82  POTTERISM 

six  weeks  thinking  each  other  murderers.  Now  well  stop. 
...  I  don't  wonder  you  fought  shy  of  me,  Arthur." 

He  looked  at  her  curiously. 

"Didn't  you  fight  shy  of  me,  then?  You  can  hardly  have 
wanted  to  see  much  of  me  in  the  circumstances.'' 

"I  didn't,  of  course.  It  was  awful.  Besides,  you  w«re 
so  queer  and  disagreeable.  I  thought  it  was  a  guilty  con- 
science, but  really  I  suppose  it  was  disgust." 

"Not  disgust.  No.  Not  that."  He  seemed  to  be  balanc- 
ing the  word  "disgust"  in  his  mind,  considering  it,  then 
rejecting  it.  "But,"  he  said,  "it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  pretend  nothing  had  happened,  wouldn't  it.  ...  I  didn't 
blame  you,  you  know,  for  the  thing  itself.  I  knew  it  must 
have  been  an  accident — that  you  never  meant  .  .  .  what 
happened.  .  .  .  Well,  anyhow,  that's  all  over.  It's  been 
pretty  ghastly.  Let's  forget  it.  ...  What  Potterish  minds 
you  and  I  must  have,  Jane,  to  have  built  up  such  a  sensational 
melodrama  out  of  an  ordinary  accident,  I  think  Lord  Pink- 
erton  would  find  me  useful  on  one  of  his  papers;  I'm  wasted 
on  the  Fact.  You  and  I ;  the  two  least  likely  people  in  the 
world  for  such  fancies,  you'd  think — except  Katherine.  By 
the  way,  Katherine  half  thought  I'd  done  it,  you  know.  So 
did  Jukie." 

"I'm  inclined  now  to  think  that  K  thought  I  had,  that 
evening  she  came  to  see  me.  She  was  rather  sick  with  me 
for  letting  you  be  accused." 

"A  regular  Potter  melodrama,"  said  Gideon.  "It  might 
be  in  one  of  your  mother's  novels  or  your  father's  papers. 
That  just  shows,  Jane,  how  infectious  a  thing  Potterism  is. 
It  invades  the  least  likely  homes,  and  upsets  the  least  likely 
lives.  Horrible,  catching  disease." 

Gideon  was  walking  up  and  down  the  room  in  his  restless 
way,  playing  with  the  things  on  the  tables.  He  stopped 
suddenly,  and  looked  at  Jane. 


POTTERISM  183 

"Jane,"  he  said,  "we  won't,  you  and  I,  have  any  more 
secrets  and  concealments  between  us.  They're  rotten  things. 
Next  time  it  occurs  to  you  that  I've  committed  a  crime, 
ask  me  if  it  is  so.  And  I'll  do  the  same  to  you,  at  whatever 
risk  of  being  offensive.  We'll  begain  now  by  telling  each 
other  what  we  feel.  .  .  .  You  know  I  love  you,  my  dear." 

Oh,  yes,  Jane  knew  that.  She  said,  "I  suppose  I  do, 
Arthur." 

He  said,  "Then  what  about  it?  Do  you  .  .  ."  and  she 
said,  "Rather,  of  course  I  do." 

Then  they  kissed  each  other,  and  settled  to  get  married 
next  May  or  June.  The  baby  was  coming  in  January. 

"You'll  have  to  put  up  with  baby,  you  know,  Arthur," 
Jane  said. 

"Of  course,  poor  little  kid.  I  rather  like  them.  It's 
rough  luck  on  it  not  having  a  father  of  its  own.  I'll  try  and 
be  decent  to  it." 

That  would  be  queer,  thought  Jane,  Arthur  being  decent 
to  Oliver's  kid;  a  boy,  perhaps,  with  Oliver's  face  and 
Oliver's  mind.  Poor  little  kid :  but  Jane  would  love  it,  and 
Arthur  would  be  decent  to  it,  and  its  grandparents  would 
spoil  it;  it  would  be  their  favourite,  if  any  more  came.  -They 
wouldn't  like  the  others,  because  they  would  be  Gideon's. 
They  might  look  like  little  Yids.  Perhaps  there  wouldn't  be 
any  others.  Jane  wasn't  keen.  They  were  all  right  when 
they  were  there — jolly  little  comics,  all  slippy  in  their 
baths,  like  eels — but  they  were  an  unspeakable  nuisance  while 
on  the  way.  A  rotten  system. 


All  next  day  Jane  felt  like  stopping  people  in  the  streets 
and  shouting  at  them,  "Arthur  didn't  do  it.  Nor  did  I.  It 
was  only  that  silly  ass,  Clare." 


184  POTTERISM 

But  the  only  person  to  whom  she  really  said  it  was  Kath- 
erine.  One  told  Katherine  things,  because  she  was  as  deep 
and  as  quiet  as  the  grave.  Also,  if  Jane  hadn't  told  her 
that  Clare  did  it,  she  would  have  gone  on  thinking  it  was 
Jane,  and  Jane  didn't  like  that.  Jane  did  not  care  to  give 
Katherine  more  reasons  for  making  her  feel  cheap  than  neces- 
sary. She  would  always  think  Jane  cheap,  anyhow,  because 
Jane  only  cared  about  having  a  good  time,  and  Katherine 
thought  one  should  care  chiefly  about  one's  job.  Jane  sup- 
posed she  was  cheap,  but  didn't  much  care.  She  felt  she 
would  rather  be  herself.  She  had  a  better  time,  and  would 
have  a  better  time  still  before  she  had  done;  better  than 
Johnny,  with  the  rubbishy  books  he  was  writing  and  making 
his  firm  bring  out  for  him  and  feeling  so  pleased  with.  Jane 
knew  she  could  write  better  stuff  than  Johnny  could,  any 
day.  And  her  books  would  be  in  addition  to  Gideon,  and 
babies,  and  other  amusing  things. 

Jane  told  Katherine  Clare's  story.  Katherine  said,  "That's 
probably  bunkum,  about  why  she  pushed  him.  Clare  would 
think  of  that  later.  I  dare  say  it  would  come  to  seem  like 
that  to  her  after  a  bit.  But  I  believe  the  rest.  Those  stairs 
of  yours  are  awful,  you  know.  Quite  a  light  push  might 
do  it.  I  really  advise  you  to  be  careful,  Jane." 

"You  thought  I'd  done  it,  didn't  you,  old  thing?" 

"For  a  bit,  I  did.  For  a  bit  I  thought  it  was  Arthur. 
So  did  Jukie.  You  never  know.  Any  one  might  push  any 
one  else.  Even  Clare.  .  .  ." 

"You  might  have  thought  I  was  a  pretty  mean  little 
beast,  to  let  Arthur  be  suspected  without  owning  up." 

"I  did,"  Katherine  admitted.     "Selfish.  .  .  ." 

She  was  looking  at  Jane  in  her  considering  way.  Her 
bright  blue  eyes  seemed  always  to  go  straight  through  what 
she  was  looking  at,  like  X-rays.  When  she  looked  at  Jane 
now,  she  seemed  somehow  to  be  seeing  in  her  not  only  the 


POTTERISM  185 

present  but  the  past.  It  was  as  if  she  remembered,  and  was 
making  Jane  remember,  all  kinds  of  old  things  Jane  had 
done.  Things  she  had  done  at  Oxford ;  things  she  had  done 
since;  things  Katherine  neither  blamed  nor  condemned,  but 
just  took  into  consideration  when  thinking  what  sort  of  a 
person  Jane  was.  You  had  the  same  feeling  with  Katherine 
that  you  had  sometimes  with  Juke,  of  being  analysed  and 
understood  all  through.  You  couldn't  diddle  either  of  them 
into  thinking  you  any  nicer  than  you  were.  Jane  didn't 
want  to.  It  was  more  restful  just  to  be  taken  for  what  one 
was.  Oliver  had  been  always  idealising  her.  Gideon  didn't 
do  that;  he  knew  her  too  well.  Only  he  didn't  bother  much 
about  what  she  was,  not  being  either  a  priest  or  a  scientific 
chemist,  but  a  man  in  love. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Katherine,  "are  you  and  Arthur 
going  to  get  married?" 

Jane  told  her  in  May  or  June. 

Katherine,  who  was  lighting  a  cigarette,  looked  at  Jane 
without  smiling.  The  flame  of  the  match  shone  into  her 
face,  and  it  was  white  and  cold  and  quiet. 

"She  doesn't  think  I'm  good  enough  for  Arthur,"  Jane 

thought.    And  anyhow,  K  didn't,  Jane  knew,  think  much  of 

/    marriage  at  all.     Most  women,  if  you  said  you  were  going 

to  get  married,  assumed  it  was  a  good  thing.    They  caught 

hold  of  you  and  kissed  you.    If  you  were  a  man,  other  men 

slapped  you  on   the  back,   or  shook  hands  or  something. 

They  all  thought,  or  pretended  to  think,  it  was  a  fine  thing 

'  you  were  doing.    They  didn't  really  think  so  always.    Behind 

their  eyes  you  could  often  see  them  thinking  other  things 

\  about  it — wondering  if  you  would  like  it,  or  why  you  chose 

/  that  one,  and  if  it  was  because  you  preferred  him  or  her 

{  to  any  one  else  or  because  you  couldn't  get  ony  one  else.    Or 

,  they  would  be  pitying  you  for  stopping  being  a  bachelor  or 

spinster  and  having  to  grow  up  and  settle  down  and  support 


1 86  POTTERISM 

I  a  wife  or  manage  servants  and  babies.  But  all  that  was 
behind ;  they  didn't  show  it ;  they  would  say,  "Good  for  you, 
old  thing,"  and  kiss  you  or  shake  your  hand. 

Katherine  did  neither  to  Jane.  She  hadn't  when  it  was 
Oliver  Hobart,  because  she  hadn't  thought  it  a  suitable  mar- 
riage. She  didn't,  now  it  was  Arthur  Gideon,  perhaps  for 
the  same  reason.  She  didn't  talk  about  it.  She  talked 
about  something  else. 


CHAPTER  II 

ENGAGED  TO  BE  MAIMED 


THE  fine  weather  ended.  Early  October  had  been  warm, 
full  of  golden  light,  with  clear,  still  evenings.  Later 
the  wind  blustered,  and  it  was  cold.  Sometimes  Jane  felt 
sick;  that  was  the  baby.  But  not  often.  She  went  about 
all  right,  and  she  was  writing — journalism  and  a  novel. 
She  thought  she  would  perhaps  send  it  in  for  a  prize  novel 
competition  in  the  spring,  only  she  felt  no  certainty  of 
pleasing  the  three  judges,  all  so  very  dissimilar.  Jane's 
work  was  a  novel  about  a  girl  at  school  and  college  and 
thereafter.  Perhaps  it  would  be  the  first  trilogy;  perhaps  it 
would  not.  The  important  thing  was  that  it  should  be  well 
reviewed.  How  did  one  work  that?  You  could  never  tell. 
Some  things  were  well  reviewed,  others  weren't.  Partly 
luck  it  was,  thought  Jane.  Look  at  that  anthology  of  con- 
temporary verse  that  came  out  every  few  years.  It  was  well 
reviewed  for  several  issues,  as  it  certainly  deserved,  then,  in 
the  last,  though  it  was  equally  good,  it  was  suddenly  slated, 
and  the  unfortunate  compiler,  who  had  made,  after  all,  as 
good  a  collection  as  most  anthologists,  and  much  better  than 
some,  compared  to  the  Royal  Academy,  and  to  a  literary  sign- 
post pointing  the  wrong  way.  It  was  hard,  when  all  he  had 
set  out  to  do  was  to  collect  some  of  the  recent  poetical 
output  that  he  personally  preferred  and  bind  it  up  together 
— and,  after  all,  why  not?  It  made  a  pleasant,  portable 

187 


1 88  POTTERISM 

book,  and  had  some  really  good  things  in  it.  Reviewers  are, 
on  the  whole,  ungrateful.  The  thing  was,  thought  Jane, 
to  hit  the  public  taste  with  the  right  thing  at  the  right 
moment.  Another  thing  was  to  do  better  than  Johnny. 
That  should  be  possible,  because  Jane  was  better  than 
Johnny;  had  always  been.  Only  there  was  this  baby,  which 
made  her  feel  ill  before  it  came,  and  would  need  care  and 
attention  afterwards.  It  wasn't  fair.  If  Johnny  married 
and  had  a  baby  it  wouldn't  get  in  his  way,  only  in  its 
mamma's.  It  was  a  handicap,  like  your  frock  (however 
short  it  was)  when  you  were  climbing.  You  had  got  round 
that  by  taking  it  off  and  climbing  in  knickerbockers,  but  you 
couldn't  get  round  a  baby.  And  Jane  wanted  the  baby  too. 

"I  suppose  I  want  everything,"  said  Jane. 

Johnny  wanted  everything  too.  He  had  a  lot.  He  got 
love.  He  was  polygamous  by  nature,  and  usually  had  more 
than  one  girl  on  hand.  That  autumn  he  had  two.  One 
was  Nancy  Sharpe,  the  violinist.  They  were  always  about 
together.  People  who  didn't  know  either  of  them  well, 
thought  they  would  get  engaged.  But  neither  of  them 
wanted  that.  The  other  girl  was  a  different  kind:  the 
lovely,  painted,  music-hall  kind  you  don't  meet.  No  one 
thought  Johnny  would  marry  her,  of  course.  They  merely 
passed  the  time  for  one  another. 

Jane  wondered  if  the  equivalent  man  would  pass  the  time 
for  her.  She  didn't  think  so.  She  thought  she  would  get 
bored  with  never  talking  about  anything  interesting.  And  it 
must,  she  thought,  be  pretty  beastly  having  to  kiss  people 
who  used  cheap  scent  and  painted  their  lips.  One  would 
be  afraid  the  red  stuff  would  come  off.  In  fact,  it  surely 
would.  Didn't  men  mind — clean  men,  like  Johnny?  Men 
are  so  different,  thought  Jane.  Johnny  was  the  same  at 
Oxford.  He  would  flirt  with  girls  in  tea-shops.  Jane  had 
never  wanted  to  flirt  with  the  waiters  in  restaurants.  Men 


POTTERISM  189 

were  perhaps  less  critical;  or  perhaps  they  wanted  different 
^qualities  in  those  with  whom  they  flirted;  or  perhaps  it  was 
that  their  amatory  instinct,  when  pronounced  at  all,  was 
much  stronger  than  women's,  and  flowed  out  on  to  any 
object  at  hand  when  they  were  in  the  mood.  Also,  they 
certainly  grew  up  earlier.  At  Oxford  and  Cambridge  girls 
weren't,  for  the  most  part,  grown-up  enough  to  be  thinking 
about  that  kind  of  thing  at  all.  It  came  on  later,  with  most 
of  them.  But  men  of  that  age  were,  quite  a  lot  of  them, 
mature  enough  to  flirt  with  the  girls  in  Buol's. 

Jane  discussed  it  with  Gideon  one  evening.  Gideon  said, 
"Men  usually  have,  as  a  rule,  more  sex  feeling  than  women, 
that's  all.  Naturally.  They  need  more,  to  carry  them 
through  all  the  business  of  making  marriage  proposals  and 
keeping  up  homes,  and  so  on.  Women  often  have  very 
little.  That's  why  they're  often  better  at  friendship  than 
men  are.  A  woman  can  be  a  man's  friend  all  their  lives, 
but  a  man,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  will  either  get  tired  of 
it  or  want  more.  Women  have  a  tremendous  gift  for 
friendship.  Their  friendships  with  other  women  are  usually 
much  more  devoted  and  more  faithful  than  a  man's  with 
other  men.  Most  men,  though  of  course  not  all,  want  sex 
in  their  lives  at  some  time  or  other.  Hundreds  of  women 
are  quite  happy  without  it.  They're  quite  often  nearly  sex- 
less. Very  few  men  are  that." 

Jane  said,  "There  are  plenty  of  women  like  Clare,  whom, 
one  can't  think  of  apart  from  sex.     No  friendship  would  \ 
ever  satisfy  her.     If  she  isn't  a  wife  and  mother  she'll  be  \ 
starved.     She'll  marry,  of  course." 

"Yes,"  Gideon  agreed.  "There  are  plenty  of  women 
like  that.  And  when  a  woman  is  like  that,  she's  much 
more  dependent  on  love  and  marriage  than  any  man  is, 
because  she  usually  has  fewer  other  things  in  her  life.  But 
there  are  women  also  like  Katherine." 


190  POTTERISM 

"Oh,  Katherine.  K  isn't  even  dependent  on  friendship. 
She  only  wants  her  work.  K  isn't  typical." 

"No;  she  isn't  typical.  She  isn't  a  channel  for  the  life 
force,  like  most  of  us.  She's  too  independent ;  she  won't  let 
herself  be  used  in  that  way." 

"Am  I  a  channel  for  the  life  force?"  thought  Jane.  "I 
suppose  so.  Hence  Oliver  and  baby.  Is  Arthur  ?  I  suppose 
so.  Hence  his  wanting  to  marry  me." 


Jane  told  her  family  that  she  was  going  to  marry  Gideon. 
Lady  Pinkerton  said,  "It's  extraordinary  to  me  that  you  can 
think  of  it,  Jane,  after  all  that  has  happened.  Surely,  my 
child,  the  fact  that  it  was  the  last  thing  Oliver  would  wish 
should  have  some  weight  with  you.  Whatever  plane  he  may 
be  on  now,  he  must  be  disturbed  by  such  news  as  this. 
Besides,  dear  child,  it  is  far  too  soon.  You  should  wait  at 
least  a  year  before  taking  such  a  step.  And  Arthur  Gideon ! 
Not  only  a  Jew,  Jane,  and  not  only  a  man  of  such  very 
unfortunate  political  principles,  but  one  who  has  never 
attempted  to  conceal  his  spiteful  hostility  both  to  father's 
papers  and  my  books.  But  perhaps,  as  I  believe  you  agree 
with  him  in  despising  both  of  these,  that  may  be  an  extra 
bond  between  you.  Only  you  must  see  that  it  will  make 
family  life  extremely  awkward." 

Of  course  it  would.  But  family  lives  nearly  always  are 
/  awkward,  Jane  thought;  it  is  one  of  the  things  about  them. 
^  Lady  Pinkerton  added,  having  suddenly  remembered  it, 
"Besides,  my  dear,  he  drinks',  you  told  me  so  yourself." 

Jane  said,  if  she  had,  she  had  lied  doubtless,  for  some 
good  reason  now  forgotten  by  her.  He  didn't  drink,  not  in 
the  excessive  sense  of  that  word  obviously  intended  by  Lady 


POTTERISM  191 

Pinkerton.  Lady  Pfnkerton  was  unconvinced ;  she  stilt  was 
sure  he  drank  in  that  sense. 

She  resumed,  "And  Jewish  babies!  I  wonder  you  can 
think  of  it,  Jane.  They  may  be  a  throw-back  to  a  most 
degraded  Russian-Jewish  type.  What  brothers  and  sisters 
for  the  dear  mite  who  is  coming  first!  My  dear,  I  do  beg 
you  do  think  this  over  long  and  seriously  before  committing 
yourself.  You  may  live  to  repent  it  bitterly." 

Clare  said,  "Jane!    How  can  you — after.  .  .  ." 

After  Oliver,  she  meant.  She  would  never  say  his  name; 
perhaps  one  doesn't  like  to  when  one  has  killed  a  man. 

Jane  thought,  "Why  didn't  I  leave  Oliver  to  Clare? 
She'd  have  suited  him  much  better.  I  was  stupid ;  I  thought 
I  wanted  him.  I  did  want  him.  But  not  in  the  way  I 
want  Arthur  now.  One  wants  so  many  things." 

Lord  Pinkerton  said,  "You're  making  a  big  mistake,  Babs. 
That  fellow  won't  last.  He's  building  on  sand,  as  the  Bible 
puts  it — building  on  sand.  I  hear  on  good  authority  that 
the  Fact  can't  go  on  many  months  longer,  unless  it  changes 
its  tone  and  methods  considerably ;  its  got  no  chance  of  fight- 
ing its  way  as  it  is  now.  People  don't  want  that  kind  of 
thing.  They  don't  want  anything  the  Gideon  lot  will  give 
them.  Gideon  and  his  sort  haven't  got  the  goods.  They're 
building  on  the  sand  of  their  own  fancy,  not  on  the  rock 
of  general  human  demand.  I  hear  that  that  daily  they 
talked  of  starting  can't  come  off  yet,  either.  .  .  .  The  chap's 
a  bad  investment,  Babs.  .  .  .  And  he  despises  me  and  my 
goods,  you  know.  That'll  be  awkward." 

"Not  you,  daddy.  The  papers,  he  does.  He  rather  likes 
you,  though  he  doesn't  approve  of  you.  .  .  .  He  doesn't  like 
mother,  and  she  doesn't  like  him.  But  people  often  don't 
get  on  with  their  mothers-in-law." 

"It's  an  awkward  alliance,  my  dear,  a  very  awkward 
alliance.  What  will  people  say  ?  Besides,  he's  a  Jew." 


192  POTTERISM 

Jewish  babies;  he  was  thinking  of  them  too. 

Jane  thought,  bother  the  babies.  Perhaps  there  wouldn't 
be  any,  and  if  there  were,  they'd  only  be  a  quarter  Jew. 
Anyhow,  it  wasn't  them  she  wanted ;  it  was  Arthur. 

Arthur  opened  doors  and  windows.  You  got  to  the  edgeN 
of  your  own  thought,  and  then  stepped  out  beyond  into  hisf 
thought.  And  his  thought  drove  sharp  and  hard  into  space. ' 

But  more  than  this,  Jane  loved  the  way  his  hair  grew, 
and  the  black  line  his  eyebrows  made  across  his  forehead,  and 
the  way  he  stood,  tall  and  lean  and  slouching,  and  his  keen 
thin  face  and  his  long  thin  hands,  and  the  way  his  mouth 
twisted  up  when  he  smiled,  and  his  voice,  and  the  whole  of 
him.  She  wondered  if  he  loved  her  like  that — if  he  turned 
hot  and  cold  when  he  saw  her  in  the  distance.  She  believed 
that  he  did  love  her  like  that.  He  had  loved  her,  as  she 
had  loved  him,  all  that  time  he  had  thought  she  was  lying 
to  every  one  about  Oliver's  death.  ,. 

f     "It  isn't  what  people  do,"  said  Jane,  "that  makes  one  love   / 
/  them  or  stop  loving  them." 

"Is  this,"  she  thought,  "what  Clare  felt  for  Oliver?  I 
didn't  know  it  was  like  this,  or  I  wouldn't  have  taken  him 
from  her.  Poor  old  Clare."  Could  one  love  Oliver  liks 
that  ?  Any  one,  Jane  supposed,  could  be  loved  like  that,  by 
the  right  person.  And  people  like  Clare  loved  more  than 
people  like  her;  they  felt  more,  and  had  fewer  other  occu- 
pations. 

Jane  hadn't  known  that  she  could  feel  so  much  about 
anything  as  she  was  feeling  now  about  Gideon.  It  was 
interesting.  She  wondered  how  long  it  would  last,  at  this 
pitch. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PRECISIAN  AT  WAR  WITH  THE  WORLD 


JANE'S  baby  was  born  in  January.  As  far  as  babies  can 
be  like  grown  human  beings,  it  was  like  its  grand- 
father— a  little  Potter. 

Lord  Pinkerton  was  pleased. 

"He  shall  carry  on  the  papers,"  he  said,  dandling  it  on 
his  arm.  "Tootooloo,  grandson!0  He  dug  it  softly  in  the 
ribs.  He  understood  this  baby.  However  many  little  Yids 
Jane  might  achieve  in  the  future,  there  would  be  this  little 
Potter  to  carry  on  his  own  dreams. 

Clare  came  to  see  it.  She  was  glad  it  wasn't  like  Oliver; 
Jane  saw  her  being  glad  of  that.  She  was  beginning  to 
fall  in  love  with  a  young  naval  officer,  but  still  she  couldn't 
have  seen  Oliver  in  Jane's  child  without  wincing. 

Gideon  came  to  see  it.     He  laughed. 

"Potter  for  ever,"  he  said. 

He  added.  "It's  symbolic.  Potters  will  be  for  ever,  you 
know.  They're  so  strong.  ..." 

The  light  from  the  foggy  winter  afternoon  fell  on  his 
face  as  he  sat  by  the  window.  He  looked  tired  and  per- 
plexed. Strength,  perpetuity,  seemed  things  remote  from 
him,  belonging  only  to  Potters.  Anti-Potterism  and  the 
Weekly  Fact  were  frail  things  of  a  day,  when  the  fog  closed 
about  him.  .  .  . 

Jane  looked  at  her  son,  the  strange  little  animal,  and 

193 


194  POTTERISM 

thought  not  "Potter  for  ever,"  but  "me  for  ever,"  as  was 
natural,  and  as  parents  will  think  of  their  young,  who  will 
carry  them  down  the  ages  in  an  ever  more  distant  but  never 
lost  immortality,  an  atom  of  dust  borne  on  the  hurrying 
stream.  Jane,  who  believed  in  no  other  personal  immortality, 
found  it  in  this  little  Potter  in  her  arms.  Holding  him  close, 
she  loved  him,  in  a  curious,  new,  physical  way.  So  this  was 
motherhood,  this  queer,  sensuous,  cherishing  love.  It  would 
have  been  a  pity  not  to  have  known  it;  it  was,  after  all,  an 
emotion,  more  profound  than  most. 


When  Jane  was  well  enough,  she  gave  a  party  for 
Charles,  as  if  he  had  been  a  new  picture  she  had  painted 
and  wanted  to  show  off.  Her  friends  came  and  looked  at 
him,  and  thought  how  clever  of  her  to  have  had  him,  all 
complete  and  alive  and  jolly  like  that,  a  real  baby.  He 
was  better  than  the  books  and  things  they  wrote,  because 
he  was  more  alive,  and  would  also  last  longer,  with  luck. 
Their  books  wouldn't  have  a  run  of  four  score  years  and 
ten  or  whatever  it  was;  they'd  be  lucky  if  any  one  thought 
of  them  again  in  five  years. 

But  partly  Jane  gave  the  party  to  show  people  that  Charles 
didn't  monopolise  her,  that  she  was  well  and  active  again, 
ard  ready  for  work  and  life.  If  she  wasn't  careful,  she 
might  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  mere  mother,  and  dropped 
out. 

Johnny  said,  grinning  amiably  at  her  and  Charles,  "Ah, 
you're  thinking  that  your  masterpiece  quite  puts  mine  in  the 
shade,  aren't  you,  old  thing." 

He  had  a  novel  just  out.  It  was  as  good  as  most  young 
men's  first  novels. 

"I'm  not  sure,"  said  Jane,  "that  Charles  is  my  master- 


POTTERISM  195 

piece.    Wait  till  the  other  works  appear,  and  I'll  tell  you." 

Johnny  grinned  more,  supposing  that  she  meant  the  little 
Yids. 

"My  books,  I  mean,"  Jane  added  quickly. 

"Oh,  your  books." 

"They're  going  to  be  better  than  yours,  my  dear,"  said 
Jane.  "Wait  and  see.  .  .  .  But  I  dare  say  they  won't  be  as 
good  as  this."  She  appraised  Charles  with  her  eyes. 

"But,  oh,  so  much  less  trouble,"  she  added,  swinging  him 
up  and  down. 

"I  could  have  one  as  good  as  that,"  said  Johnny  thought- 
fully, "with  no  trouble  at  all." 

"You'd  have  to  work  for  it  and  keep  it.  And  its  mother. 
You  wouldn't  like  that,  you  know.  ...  Of  course  you  ought 
to.  It's  your  duty.  Every  young  man  who  survives.  .  .  . 
Daddy  says  so.  You'd  better  do  it,  John.  You're  getting 
on,  you  know." 

X*"  Young  men  hate  getting  on.  They  hate  it,  really,  more 
}  than  young  women  do.  Youth  is  of  such  immense  value, 
\in  almost  any  career,  but  particularly  to  the  young  writer. 

But  Johnny  only  said,  with  apparent  nonchalance, 
"Twenty-seven  is  not  very  old."  He  added,  however,  "Any- 
how, you're  five  minutes  older,  and  I've  published  a  book, 
if  you  have  produced  that  thing." 

Johnny  was  frankly  greedy  about  his  book.  He  hung  on 
reviews;  he  asked  for  it  in  bookshops,  and  expressed  astonish- 
ment and  contempt  when  they  had  not  got  it.  And  it  was, 
after  all,  nothing  to  make  a  song  about,  Jane  thought.  It 
wasn't  positively  discreditable  to  its  writer,  like  most  novels, 
but  it  was  a  very  normal  book,  by  a  very  normal  cleverish 
young  man.  Johnny  wasn't  sure  that  his  publishers  adver- 
tised it  as  much  as  was  desirable. 

Gideon  came  up  to  Jane  and  Charles.  He  had  just 
arrived.  He  had  three  evening  papers  in  his  hand.  His 


196  POTTERISM 

fellow  passengers  had  left  them  in  the  train,  and  he  had 
collected  them.    Jews  often  get  their  news  that  way. 

Johnny  saw  his  friend  Miss  Nancy  Sharpe  disengaged  and 
looking  lovely,  and  went  to  speak  to  her.  He  was  really  in 
love  with  her  a  little,  though  he  didn't  go  as  far  as  wanting 
to  work  for  her  and  keep  her.  He  was  quite  right;  that 
is,  not  to  go  too  far,  when  so  much  happiness  is  attainable 
short  of  it.  Johnny  wisely  shunned  desperate  measures.  So, 
to  do  her  justice,  did  Miss  Sharpe. 

"Johnny's  very  elated,"  said  Jane  to  Gideon,  looking  after 
him.  "Why  do  you  think  of  his  book,  Arthur?" 

Gideon  said,  "I  don't  think  of  it.  I've  had  no  reason  to, 
particularly.  I've  not  had  to  review  it.  ...  I'm  afraid 
I'm  hopeless  about  novels  just  now,  that's  the  fact.  I'm  sick 
of  the  form — slices  of  life  served  up  cold  in  three  hundred  y 
pages.  Oh,  it's  very  nice;  it  makes  nice  reading  for  people.. 
But  what's  the  use?  Except,  of  course,  to  kill  time  for 
those  who  prefer  it  dead.  But  as  things  in  themselves,  as 
art,  they've  been  ruined  by  excess.  My  critical  sense  is 
blunted  just  now.  I  can  hardly  feel  the  difference,  though 
I  see  it,  between  a  good  novel  and  a  bad  one.  I  couldn't 
write  one,  good  or  bad,  to  save  my  life,  I  know  that.  And 
I've  got  to  the  stage  when  I  wish  other  people  wouldn't. 
I  wish  every  one  would  shut  up,  so  that  we  could  hear  our- 
selves think — like  in  the  Armistice  Day  pause,  when  all  the 
noise  stopped." 

Jane  shook  her  head. 

"You  may  be  sure  we  shan't  do  that.  Not  likely.  We  all 
want  to  hear  ourselves  talk.  And  quite  right  too.  We've 
got  things  to  say." 

"Nothing  of  importance.  Few  things  that  wouldn't  be 
better  unsaid.  Life  isn't  talking." 

"A  journalist's  is,"  Jane  pointed  out,  and  he  nodded. 

"Quite   true.      Horribly   true.      It's   chiefly   myself   I'm 


POTTERISM  197 

hitting  at.  But  at  least  we  journalists  don't  take  ourselves 
solemnly;  we  know  our  stuff  is  babble  to  fill  a  moment. 
Novelists  and  poets  don't  always  know  that;  they're  apt  to 
think  it  matters.  And,  of  course,  so  far  as  any  of  them 
can  make  and  hold  beauty,  even  a  fragment  of  it  here  and 
there,  it  does  matter.  The  trouble  is  that  they  mostly  can't 
do  anything  of  the  sort.  They  don't  mostly  even  know  how 
to  try.  All  but  a  few  verse-makers  are  shallow,  muddled,  or 
sentimental,  and  most  novelists  are  commercial  as  well. 
They  haven't  the  means;  they  aren't  adequately  equipped; 
they've  nothing  in  them  worth  the  saying.  Why  say  it, 
then?  A  little  cleverness  isn't  worth  while." 

"You're  morbid,  Arthur." 

"Morbid?  Diseased?  I  dare  say.  We  most  of  us  are. 
What's  health,  after  all?  No  one  knows." 

"I've  done  eighty  thousand  words  of  my  novel,  anyhow." 

"I'm  sorry.  Nearly  all  novels  are  too  long.  All  you've 
got  to  say  would  go  into  forty  thousand." 

"I  don't  write  because  I've  got  things  to  say.  I  haven't 
a  message,  like  mother.  I  write  because  it  amuses  me. 
And  because  I  like  to  be  a  novelist.  It's  done.  And  I  like 
to  be  well  spoken  of — reasonably  well,  that  is.  It's  all  fun. 
Why  not?" 

"Oh,  don't  ask  me  why  not.  I  can't  preach  sermons  all 
the  evening." 

He  smiled  down  on  her  out  of  his  long  sad  black  eyes,  glad 
of  her  because  she  saw  straight  and  never  canted,  impatient 
of  her  because  her  ideals  were  commercial,  loving  her  because 
she  was  gray-eyed  and  white-skinned  and  desirable,  seeing 
her  much  as  Nancy  Sharpe,  who  lived  for  music,  saw  Johnny 
Potter,  only  with  ardour  instead  of  nonchalance;  such  ardour, 
indeed,  that  his  thoughts  of  her  only  intermittently  achieved 
exactitude. 


ig8  POTTERISM 

» 
Two  girls  came  up  to  admire  Charles.    Jane  said  it  was 

time  she  took  him  to  bed,  and  they  went  up  with  her. 

Gideon  turned  away.  He  hated  parties,  and  seldom  went 
even  to  Jane's.  He  stood  drinking  coffee  and  watching 
people.  You  met  most  of  them  at  the  club  and  elsewhere 
continually;  why  meet  them  all  again  in  a  drawing-room? 
There  was  his  sister  Rosalind  and  her  husband  Boris  Stefan 
with  their  handsome  faces  and  masses  of  black  hair.  Rosalind 
had  a  baby  too  (at  home) ;  a  delicate,  pretty,  fair-haired 
thing,  like  Rosalind's  Manchester  mother.  And  Charles  was 
like  Jane's  Birmingham  father.  It  was  Manchester  and 
Birmingham  that  persisted,  not  Palestine  or  Russia. 

And  there  was  Juke,  with  his  white,  amused  face  and 
heavy-lidded  eyes  that  seemed  always  to  see  a  long  way,  and 
Katherine  Varick  talking  to  a  naval  officer  about  periscopes 
(Jane  kept  in  with  some  of  the  Admiralty),  and  Peacock, 
with  whom  Gideon  had  quarrelled  two  hours  ago  at  the 
Fact  office,  and  who  was  now  in  the  middle  of  a  group  of 
writing  young  men,  as  usual.  Gideon  looked  at  him  cyni- 
cally. Peacock  was  letting  himself  be  got  at  by  a  clique. 
Gideon  would  rather  have  seen  him  talking  to  the  practical 
looking  sailor  about  periscopes.  Peacock  would  have  to 
be  watched.  He  had  shown  signs  lately  of  colouring  the  Fact 
with  prejudices.  He  was  getting  in  with  a  push;  he  was 
dangerously  in  the  movement.  He  was  also  leaning  romance- 
wards,  and  departing  from  the  realm  of  pure  truth.  He 
had  given  credence  to  some  strange  travellers'  tales  of 
Foreign  Office  iniquities.  As  if  that  unfortunate  body  had 
not  enough  sins  to  its  account  without  having  melodramatic 
and  uncharacteristic  kidnappings  and  deeds  of  violence  attri- 
buted to  it.  But  Peacock  had  got  in  with  those  unhappy 
journalists  and  others  who  had  been  viewing  Russia,  and, 
barely  escaping  with  their  lives  had  come  back  with  nothing 
else,  and  least  of  all  with  that  accurate  habit  of  mind  which 


POTTERISM  199 

would  have  qualified  them  as  contributors  to  the  Weekly 
Fact.  It  was  not  their  fault  (except  for  going  to  Russia), 
but  Peacock  should  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  them. 

Katherine  Varick  crossed  the  room  to  Gideon,  with  a 
faint  smile. 

"Hallo.    Enjoying  life?" 

"Precisely  that." 

"I  say,  what  are  you  doing  with  the  Fact?" 

Gideon  looked  at  her  sourly. 

"Oh,  you've  noticed  it  too.  It's  becoming  quite  pretty 
reading,  isn't  it.  Less  like  a  Blue  Book." 

"Much  less.  I  should  say  it  was  beginning  to  appeal  to  a 
wider  circle.  Is  that  the  idea?" 

"Don't  ask  me.  Ask  Peacock.  Whatever  the  idea  is, 
it's  his,  not  mine.  .  .  .  But  it's  not  a  considered  idea  at  all. 
It's  merely  a  yielding  to  the  (apparently)  irresistible  pres- 
sure of  atmosphere." 

"I  see.     A  truce  with  the  Potter  armies." 

"No.  There's  no  such  thing  as  a  truce  with  them.  It's 
the  first  steps  of  a  retreat." 

He  said  it  sharply  and  suddenly,  in  the  way  of  a  man  who 
is,  at  the  moment,  making  a  discovery.  He  turned  and 
looked  across  the  room  at  Peacock,  who  was  talking  and 
talking,  in  his  clever,  keen,  pleasant  way,  not  in  the  least 
like  a  Blue  Book. 

"We're  not  like  Blue  Books,"  Gideon  muttered  sadly. 
"Hardly  any  one  is.  Unfortunate.  Very  unfortunate. 
What's  one  to  do  about  it?" 

"Lord  Pinkerton  would  say,  learn  human  nature  as  it  is 
and  build  on  it.  Exploit  its  weaknesses,  instead  of  tilting 
against  them.  Accept  sentimentality  and  prejudice,  and  use 
them." 

"I  am  aware  that  he  would.  .  .  .  What  do  you  say, 
Katherine?" 


200  POTTERISM 

"Nothing.  What's  the  use?  I'm  one  of  the  Blue  Books 
—not  a  fair  judge,  therefore." 

"No.    You'd  make  no  terms,  ever." 

"I've  never  been  tempted.  One  may  have  to  make  terms, 
sometimes." 

"I  think  not,"  said  Gideon.  "I  think  one  never  is  obliged 
to  make  terms." 

"If  the  enemy  is  too  strong?" 

"Then  one  goes  under.  Gets  out  of  it.  That's  not  making 
terms.  .  .  .  Good-night;  I'm  going  home.  I  hate  parties, 
you  know.  So  do  you.  Why  do  either  of  us  go  to  them?" 

"They  take  one's  thoughts  off,"  said  Katherine  in  her  own 
mind.  Her  blue  eyes  contracted  as  she  looked  after  him. 

"He's  failing;  he's  being  hurt.  He'll  go  under.  He 
should  have  been  a  scientist  or  a  scholar  or  a  chemist,  like 
]  me!  something  in  which  knowledge  matters  and  people 
/  don't.  People  will  break  his  heart." 

^»«*— -•' 


Gideon  walked  all  the  way  back  from  Hampstead  to  his 
own  rooms.  It  was  a  soft,  damp  night,  full  of  little  v/inds 
that  blew  into  the  city  from  February  fields  and  muddy 
roads  far  off.  There  would  be  lambs  in  the  fields.  .  .  . 
Gideon  suddenly  wanted  to  get  out  of  the  town  into  that 
damp,  dark  country  that  circled  it.  There  would  be  fewer 
people  there ;  fewer  minds  crowded  together,  making  a  dense 
atmosphere  that  was  impervious  to  the  piercing,  however 
sharp,  wind  of  truth.  All  this  dense  mass  of  stupid,  muddled, 
huddled  minds.  .  .  .  What  was  to  be  done  with  it?  Greedy 
minds,  ignorant  minds,  sentimental,  truthless  minds.  .  .  . 

He  saw,  as  he  passed  a  newspaper  stand,  placards  in  big 
black  letters— "Bride's  Suicide."  "Divorce  of  Baronet." 
Then,  small  and  inconspicuous,  hardly  hoping  for  attention? 


POTTERISM  201 

"Italy  and  the  Adriatic."  For  one  person  who  would  care 
about  Italy  and  the  Adriatic,  there  would,  presumably,  be  a 
hundred  who  would  care  about  the  bride  and  the  baronet. 
Presumably;  else  why  the  placards,  Gideon  honestly  tried  to 
bend  his  impersonal  and  political  mind  to  understand  it. 
He  knew  no  such  people,  yet  one  had  to  believe  they  existed ; 
people  who  really  cared  that  a  bride  with  whom  they  had 
no  acquaintance  (why  a  bride?  Did  that  make  her  more 
interesting?)  had  taken  her  life;  and  that  a  baronet  (also  a 
perfect  stranger)  had  had  his  marriage  dissolved  in  a  court 
of  law.  What  quality  did  it  indicate,  this  curious  and 
inexplicable  interest  in  these  topics  so  tedious  to  himself  and 
to  most  of  his  personal  acquaintances?  Was  it  a  love  of 
romance?  But  what  romance  was  to  be  found  in  suicide  or 
divorce?  Romance  Gideon  knew;  knew  how  it  girdled  the 
world,  heard  the  beat  of  its  steps  in  far  forests,  the  whisper 
of  its  wings  on  dark  seas.  ...  It  is  there,  not  in  divorces 
and  suicides.  Were  people  perhaps  moved  by  desire  to  hear 
about  the  misfortunes  of  others?  No,  because  they  also 
welcomed  with  eagerness  the  more  cheerful  domestic  episodes 
reported.  Was  it,  then,  some  fundamental,  elemental  interest 
in  fundamental  things,  such  as  love,  hate,  birth,  death? 
That  was  possibly  it.  The  relation  of  states  one  with 
another  are  the  product  of  civilisation,  and  need  an  at  least 
rudimentarily  political  brain  to  grasp  them.  The  relations 

I  of  human  beings  are  natural,  and  only  need  the  human  heart 
for  their  understanding.  That  part  of  man's  mind  which 
has  been,  for  some  obscure  reason,  inaccurately  called  the 
heart,  was  enormously  and  disproportionately  stronger  than 
the  rest  of  the  mind,  the  thinking  part. 

"Light  Caught  Bending,"  another  placard  remarked.  That 
was  more  cheerful,  though  it  was  an  idiotic  way  of  putting 
a  theory  as  to  the  curvature  of  space,  but  it  was  refreshing 
that,  apparently,  people  were  expected  to  be  excited  by  that 


202  POTTERISM 

too.  And  Gideon  knew  it,  they  were.  Einstein's  theory  as 
to  space  and  light  would  be  discussed,  with  varying  degrees 
of  intelligence,  most  of  them  low,  in  many  a  cottage,  many 
a  club,  many  a  train.  There  would  be  columns  about  it 
in  the  Sunday  papers,  with  little  Sunday  remarks  to  the 
effect  that  the  finiteness  of  space  did  not  limit  the  infinity  of 
God.  Scientists  have  nai'f  minds  where  God  is  concerned; 
they  see  him,  if  at  all,  in  terms  of  space.  .  .  . 

Anyhow,  there  it  was.     People  were  interested  not  only 
in  divorce,   suicide,  and  murder,  but  in  light  and  space, 
undulations  and  gravitation.    That  was  rather  jolly,  for  that 
was  true  romance.     It  gave  one  more  hope.     Even  though  \ 
people  might  like  their  science  in  cheap  and  absurd  tabloid  / 
form,  they  did  like  it.    The  Potter  press  exulted  in  scientific  < 
discoveries  made  easy,  but  it  was  better  than  not  exulting  in/ 
them  at  all.    For  these  were  things  as  they  were,  and  there-; 
fore  the  things  that  mattered.    This  was  the  satisfying  world 
of  hard,  difficult  facts,  without  slush  and  without  sentiment.1) 
This  was  the  world  where  truth  was  sought  for  its  own] 
sake. 

"When  I  see  truth,  do  I  seek  truth 
Only  that  I  may  things  denote, 
And,  rich  by  striving,  deck  my  youth 
As  with  a  vain,  unusual  coat?" 

Nearly  ever  one  in  the  ordinary  world  did  that,  if  indeed 
they  ever  concerned  themselves  with  truth  at  all.  And  some 
scientists  too,  perhaps,  but  not  most.  Scientists  and  scholars 
and  explorers — they  were  the  people.  They  were  the  world's 
students,  the  learners,  the  discoverers.  They  didn't  talk  till 
they  knew.  .  .  . 

Rain  had  begun  to  drizzle.  At  the  corner  of  Marylebone 
Road,  and  Baker  Street  there  was  a  lit  coffee-stall.  A  group 
clustered  about  it ;  a  policeman  drinking  Oxo,  his  waterproof 
cape  shining  with  wet;  two  taxi-cab  drivers  having  coffee 


POTTERISM  203 

and  buns;  a  girl  in  an  evening  cloak,  with  a  despatch  case, 
eating  biscuits. 

Gideon  passed  by  without  stopping.  A  hand  touched  him 
on  the  arm,  and  a  painted  face  looked  up  into  his,  murmuring 
something.  Gideon,  who  had  a  particular  dislike  for  paint 
on  the  human  face,  and,  in  general,  for  persons  who  looked 
and  behaved  like  this  person,  looked  away  from  her  and 
scowled. 

"I  only  wanted,"  she  explained,  "a  cup  of  coffee  .  .  ." 
and  he  gave  her  sixpence,  though  he  didn't  believe  her. 

Horrible,  these  women  were;  ugly;  dirty,  loathsome;  so 
that  one  wondered  why  on  earth  any  one  liked  them  (some 
people  obviously  did  like  them,  or  they  wouldn't  be  there), 
and  yet,  detestable  as  they  were,  they  were  the  outcome  of 
facts.  Possibly  in  them,  and  in  the  world's  other  ugly  facts, 
Potterism  and  all  truth-shirking  found  whatever  justification 
it  had.  Sentimentalism  spread  a  rosy  veil  over  the  ugliness, 
draping  it  decently.  Making  it,  thought  Gideon,  how  much 
worse ;  but  making  it  such  as  Potterites  could  face  unwincing. 

The  rain  beat  down.     At  its  soft,  chill  touch  Gideon's 
brain  cooled  and  cooled,  till  he  seemed  to  see  everything  in 
a  cold,  hard,  crystal  clarity.  /  Life  and  death — how  little  they  \ 
I  mattered.     Life  was  paltry,  and  death  its  end.     Yet  when  I 
/  the  world,  the  Potterish  world,  dealt  with  death  it  became    \ 
something  other  than  a  mere  end;  it  became  a  sensation,  a 
problem,  an  episode  in  a  melodrama.     The  question,  when 
a  man  died,  was  always  how  and  why.     So,  when  Hobart 
had  died,  they  were  all  dragged  into  a  net  of  suspicion  and 
melodrama — they  all  became  for  a  time  absurd  actors  in  an 
absurd  serial  in  the  Potter  press.     You  could  not  escape 
from  sensationalism  in  sensational  world.     There  was  no  < 
room  for  the  pedant,  with  his  greed  for  unadorned  and 
unemotional  precision. 

Gideon  sighed  sharply  as  he  turned  into  Oxford  Street. 


204  POTTERISM 

Oxford  Street  was  and  is  horrible.  Everything  a  street 
should  not  be,  even  when  it  was  down,  and  now  it  was  up, 
which  was  far  worse.  If  Gideon  had  not  been  unnerved 
by  the  painted  person  at  the  corner  of  Baker  Street  he  would 
never  have  gone  home  this  way,  he  would  have  gone  along 
Marylebone  and  Euston  Road.  As  it  was,  he  got  into  a 
bus  and  rode  unhappily  to  Gray's  Inn  Road,  where  he  lived. 
He  sat  up  till  three  in  the  morning  working  out  statistics 
for  an  article.  Statistics,  figures,  were  delightful.  They 
were  a  rest.  They  mattered. 


Two  days  later,  at  the  Fact  office,  Peacock,  turning  over 
galley  slips  said,  "This  thing  of  yours  on  Esthonian  food 
conditions  looks  like  a  government  schedule.  Couldn't  you 
make  it  more  attractive?" 

"To  whom?"  asked  Gideon. 

"Well — the  ordinary  reader." 

"Oh,  the  ordinary  reader.  I  meant  it  to  be  attractive  to 
people  who  want  information." 

"Well,  but  a  little  jam  with  the  powder.  .  .  .  For  in- 
stance, you  draw  no  inference  from  your  facts.  It's  dull. 
Why  not  round  the  thing  off  into  a  good  article?" 

"I  can't  round  things.  I  don't  like  them  round,  either 
I've  given  the  facts,  unearthed  with  considerable  trouble  and 
pains.  No  one  else  has.  Isn't  it  enough  ?" 

"Oh,  it'll  do."  Peacock's  eyes  glanced  over  the  other 
proofs  on  his  desk.  "We've  got  some  good  stuff  this 
number." 

"Nice  round  articles — yes."  Gideon  turned  the  slips  over 
with  his  lean  brown  fingers  carelessly.  He  picked  one  up. 

"Hallo.  I  didn't  know  that  chap  was  reviewing  Coal  and 
Wages." 


POTTERISM  205 

"Yes.    He  asked  if  he  could." 

"Do  you  think  he  knows  enough?" 

"It's  quite  a  good  review.     Read  it." 

Gideon  read  it  carefully,  then  laid  it  down  and  said, 
"I  don't  agree  with  you  that  it's  a  good  review.  He's  made 
at  least  two  mistakes.  And  the  whole  thing's  biased  by  his 
personal  political  theories." 

"Only  enough  to  give  it  colour." 

"You  don't  want  colour  in  a  review  of  a  book  of  that 
sort.  You  only  want  intelligence  and  exact  knowledge." 

"Oh,  Clitherton's  all  right.  His  head's  screwed  on  the 
right  way.  He  knows  his  subject." 

"Not  well  enough.  He's  a  political  theorist,  not  a  good 
economist.  That's  hopeless.  Why  didn't  you  get  Hinkson 
to  do  it?" 

"Hinkson  can't  write  for  nuts." 

"Doesn't  matter.  Hinkson  wouldn't  have  slipped  up 
over  his  figures  or  dates." 

"My  dear  old  chap,  writing  does  matter.  You're  going 
crazy  on  that  subject.  Of  course  it  matters  that  a  thing 
should  be  decently  put  together." 

"It  matters  much  more  that  it  should  be  well  informed. 
It  is,  of  course,  quite  possible  to  be  both." 

"Oh,  quite.     That's  the  idea  of  the  Fact,  after  all." 

"Peacock,  I  hate  all  these  slipshod  fellows  you  get  now. 
I  wish  you'd  chuck  the  lot.  They're  well  enough  for  most 
journalism,  but  they  don't  know  enough  for  us." 

Peacock  said,  "Oh,  we'll  thrash  it  out  another  time,  if 
you  don't  mind.  I've  got  to  get  through  some  letters  now," 
and  rang  for  his  secretary. 

Gideon  went  to  his  own  room  and  searched  old  files  for 
the  verification  and  correction  of  Clitherton's  mistakes.  He 
found  them,  and  made  a  note  of  them.  Unfortunately  they 
weakened  Clitherton's  argument  a  little.  Clitherton  would 


206  POTTERISM 

have  to  modify  it.  Clitherton,  a  sweeping  and  wholesale  per- 
son, would  not  like  that. 

Gideon  was  feeling  annoyed  with  Clitherton,  and  annoyed 
with  several  others  among  that  week's  contributors,  and 
especially  annoyed  with  Peacock,  who  permitted  and  en- 
couraged them.  If  they  went  on  like  this,  the  Fact  would 
soon  be  popular;  it  would  find  its  way  into  the  great  soft 
silly  heart  of  the  public  and  there  be  damned. 

He  was  a  pathetic  figure,  Arthur  Gideon,  the  intolerant 
precisian,  fighting  savagely  against  the  tide  of  loose  thinking 
that  he  saw  surging  in  upon  him,  swamping  the  world  and 
drowning  facts.  He  did  not  see  himself  as  a  pathetic  figure, 
or  as  anything  else.  He  did  not  see  himself  at  all,  but 
worked  away  at  his  desk  in  the  foggy  room,  checking  the 
unconsidered  or  inaccurate  or  oversimplified  statements  of 
others,  writing  his  own  section  of  the  Notes  of  the  Week, 
with  his  careful,  patient,  fine  brillance,  stopping  to  gnaw  his 
pen  or  his  thumb-nail  or  to  draw  diagrams,  triangle  within 
triangle,  or  circle  intersecting  circle,  on  his  blotting  pape*. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SUNNING  AWAY 


A  WEEK  later  Gideon  resigned  his  assistant  editorship 
of  the  Fact.  Peacock  was,  on  the  whole,  relieved. 
Gideon  had  been  getting  too  difficult  of  late.  After  some 
casting  about  among  eager,  outwardly  indifferent  possible 
successors,  Peacock  offered  the  job  to  Johnny  Potter,  who 
was  swimming  on  the  tide  of  his  first  novel,  which  had  been 
what  is  called  "well  spoken  of"  by  the  press,  but  who,  at 
the  same  time,  had  the  popular  touch,  was  quite  a  com- 
petent journalist,  was  looking  out  for  a  job,  and  was  young 
enough  to  do  what  he  was  told ;  that  is  to  say,  he  was  four 
or  five  years  younger  than  Peacock.  He  had  also  a  fervent 
enthusiasm  for  democratic  principles  and  for  Peacock's  prose 
style  (Gideon  had  been  temperate  in  his  admiration  of 
both),  and  Peacock  thought  they  would  get  on  very  well. 

Jane  was  sulky,  jealous,  and  contemptuous. 

"Johnny.  Why  Johnny?  He's  not  so  good  as  lots  of 
other  people  who  would  have  liked  the  job.  He's  swanking 
so  already  that  it  makes  me  tired  to  be  in  the  room  with 
him,  and  now  he'll  be  worse  than  ever.  Oh,  Arthur,  it  is 
rot,  your  chucking  it.  I've  a  jolly  good  mind  not  to  marry 
you.  I  thought  I  was  marrying  the  assistant  editor  of  an 
important  paper,  not  just  a  lazy  old  Jew  without  a  job." 

She  ruffled  up  his  black,  untidy  hair  with  her  hand  as  she 
sat  on  the  arm  of  his  chair;  but  she  was  really  annoyed  with 
him,  as  she  had  explained  a  week  ago  when  he  had  told  her. 

207 


208  POTTERISM 


He  had  walked  in  one  evening  and  found  her  in  Charles's 
bedroom,  bathing  him.  Clare  was  there  too,  helping. 

"Why  do  girls  like  washing  babies?"  Gideon  speculated 
aloud.  "They  nearly  all  do,  don't  they?" 

"Well,  I  should  just  hope  so,"  Clare  said.  She  was  kneel- 
ing by  the  tin  bath  with  her  sleeves  rolled  up,  holding  a 
warmed  towel.  Her  face  was  flushed  from  the  fire,  and 
her  hair  was  loosened  where  Charles  had  caught  his  toe  in 
it.  She  looked  pretty  and  maternal,  and  looked  up  at  Gideon 
/  with  the  kind  of  conventional,  good-humoured  scorn  that 
/  girls  and  women  put  on  when  men  talk  of  babies.  They  do 
it  (one  believes)  partly  because  they  feel  it  is  a  subject 
j  they  know  about,  and  partly  to  pander  to  men's  desire  that 
\  they  should  do  it.  It  is  part  of  the  pretty  play  between 
the  sexes.  Jane  never  did  it;  she  wasn't  feminine  enough. 
And  Gideon  did  not  want  her  to  do  it;  he  thought  it  silly. 

"Why  do  you  hope  so?"  asked  Gideon.  "And  why  do 
girls  like  it?" 

The  first  question  was  to  Clare,  the  second  to  Jane, 
because  he  knew  that  Clare  would  not  be  able  to  answer  it. 

"The  mites!"  said  Clare.    "Who  wouldn't  like  it?" 

Gideon  sighed  a  little.  Clare  tried  him.  She  had  an 
amorphous  mind.  But  Jane  threw  up  at  him,  as  she 
enveloped  Charles  in  the  towel,  "I'll  try  and  think  it  out 
some  time,  Arthur.  I  haven't  time  now.  .  .  .  There's  a 
reason  all  right.  .  .  .  The  powder,  Clare." 

Gideon  watched  the  absurd  drying  and  powdering  process 
with  gravity  and  interest,  as  if  trying  to  discover  its  charm. 

"Even  Katherine  enjoys  it,"  he  said,  still  pondering.  It 
was  true.  Katherine,  who  liked  experimenting  with  chem- 
icals, liked  also  washing  babies.  Possibly  Katherine  knew 
why,  in  both  cases. 


POTTERISM  209 

After  Charles  was  in  bed,  his  mother,  his  aunt,  and  his 
prospective  stepfather  had  dinner.  Clare,  who  was  uncom- 
fortable with  Gideon,  not  liking  him  as  a  brother-in-law  or 
indeed  as  anything  else  (besides  not  being  sure  how  much 
Jane  had  told  him  about  "that  awful  night"),  chattered  to 
Jane  about  things  of  which  she  thought  Gideon  knew 
nothing — dances,  plays,  friends,  family  and  Potter's  Bar 
gossip.  Gideon  became  very  silent.  He  and  Clare  touched 
nowhere.  Clare  flaunted  the  family  papers  in  his  face  and 
Jane's.  Lord  Pinkerton  was  starting  a  new  one,  a  weekly, 
and  it  promised  to  sell  not  only  better  than  any  other  weekly 
on  the  market,  but  far  better. 

"Dad  says  the  orders  have  been  simply  stunning.  It's 
going  to  be  a  big  thing.  Simple,  you  know,  and  yet  clever — 
like  all  dad's  papers.  David  says"  (David  was  the  naval 
officer  to  whom  Clare  was  now  betrothed)  "there's  no  one 
with  such  a  sense  of  what  people  want  as  dad  has.  Far 
more  of  it  than  Northcliffe,  David  says  he  has.  Because,  you 
know,  Northcliffe  sometimes  annoys  people — look  at  the  line 
he  took  about  us  helping  the  Russians  to  fight  each  other. 
And  making  out  in  leaders,  David  says,  that  the  Govern- 
ment is  always  wrong  just  because  he  doesn't  like  it.  And 
drawing  attention  to  the  mistakes  it  makes,  which  no  one 
would  notice  if  they  weren't  rubbed  in.  David  gets  quite 
sick  with  him  sometimes.  He  says  the  Pinkerton  press  never 
does  that  sort  of  thing,  it's  got  too  much  tact,  and  lets  well 
enough  alone." 

"Ill,  you  mean,  don't  you,  darling?"  Jane  interpolated. 

Clare,  who  did,  but  did  not  know  it,  only  said,  "David's 
got  a  tremendous  admiration  for  it.  He  says  it  will  to/." 

"Oh,  bother  the  paternal  press,"  Jane  said.  "Give  it 
a  rest,  old  thing.  It  may  be  new  to  David,  but  it's  stale 
to  us.  It's  Arthur's  turn  to  talk  about  his  father's  bank  or 
something." 


210  POTTERISM 

But  Arthur  didn't  talk.    He  only  made  bread  pills,  and 
the  girls  got  on  to  the  newest  dance. 


Clare  went  away  after  dinner.  She  never  stayed  long 
when  Gideon  was  there.  David  didn't  like  Gideon,  rightly 
thinking  him  a  Sheeney. 

"Sheeneys  are  at  the  bottom  of  Bolshevism,  you  know," 
he  told  Clare.  "At  the  top  too,  for  that  matter.  Dreadful 
fellows;  quite  dreadful.  Why  the  dickens  do  you  let  Jane 
marry  him?" 

Clare  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"Jane  does  what  she  likes.  Dad  and  mother  have  begged 
and  prayed  her  not  to.  ...  Besides,  of  course,  even  if  he 
was  all  right,  it's  too  soon,  ..." 

"Too  soon?  Ah,  yes,  of  course.  Poor  Hobart,  you 
mean.  Quite.  Much  too  soon.  ...  A  dreadful  business, 
that.  I  don't  blame  her  for  trying  to  put  it  behind  her, 
out  of  sight.  But  with  a  Sheeney.  Well,  chdcun  a  son 
gout."  For  David  was  tolerant,  a  live  and  let  live  man. 

When  Clare  was  gone,  Jane  said,  "Wake  up,  old  man. 
You  can  talk  now.  .  .  .  You  and  Clare  are  stupid  about 
each  other,  by  the  way.  You'll  have  to  get  over  it  some 
time.  You're  ill-mannered  and  she's  a  silly  fool;  but  ill- 
-mannered people  and  silly  fools  can  rub  along  together,  all 
\  right,  if  they  try." 

"I  don't  mind  Clare,"  said  Gideon,  rousing  himself.  "I 
wasn't  thinking  about  her,  to  say  the  truth.  I  was  thinking 
about  something  else.  .  .  .  I'm  chucking  the  Fact,  Jane." 

"How  d'you  mean,  chucking  the  Fact?"  Jane  lit  a 
cigarette. 

"What  I  say.  I've  resigned  my  job  on  it.  I'm  sick 
of  it." 


POTTERISM  211 

"Oh,  sick.  .  .  .  Every  one's  sick  of  work,  naturally.  It's 
what  work  is  for.  .  .  .  Well,  what  are  you  doing  next? 
Have  you  been  offered  a  better  job?" 

"I've  not  been  offered  a  job  of  any  sort.  And  I  shouldn't 
take  it  if  I  were — not  at  present.  I'm  sick  of  journalism." 

Jane  took  it  calmly,  lying  back  among  the  sofa  cushions 
and  smoking. 

"I  was  afraid  you  were  working  up  to  this.  .  .  .  Of 
course,  if  you  chuck  the  Fact  you  take  away  its  last  chance. 
It'll  do  a  nose-dive  now." 

"It's  doing  it  anyhow.  I  can't  stop  it.  But  I'm  jolly 
well  not  going  to  nose-dive  with  it.  I'm  clearing  out." 

"You're  giving  up  the  fight,  then.  Caving  in.  Putting 
your  hands  up  to  Potterism." 

She  was  taunting  him,  in  her  cool,  unmoved  leisurely 
tones. 

"I'm  clearing  out,"  he  repeated,  emphasising  the  phrase, 
and  his  black  eyes  seemed  to  look  into  distances.  "Running 
away,  if  you  like.  This  thing's  too  strong  for  me  to  fight. 
I  can't  do  it.  Clare's  quite  right.  It's  tremendous.  It  will 
last.  And  the  Pinkerton  press  only  represents  one  tiny  part 
of  it.  If  the  Pinkerton  press  were  all,  it  would  be  fightable. 
But  look  at  the  Fact — a  sworn  enemy  of  everything  the 
Pinkerton  press  stands  for,  politically,  but  fighting  it  with 
its  own  weapons — muddled  thinking,  sentimentality,  preju- 
dice, loose  cant  phrases.  I  tell  you  there'll  hardly  be  a  half- 
penny to  choose  between  the  Pinkerton  press  and  the  Fact, 
by  the  time  Peacock's  done  with  it.  ...  It's  not  Peacock's 
fault — except  that  he's  weak.  It's  not  the  Syndicate's 
fault — except  that  they  don't  want  to  go  on  losing  money 
for  ever.  It's  the  pressure  of  public  demand  and  atmosphere. 
Atmosphere  even  more  than  demand.  Human  minds  are 
delicate  machines.  How  can  they  go  on  working  truly  and 
precisely  and  scientifically,  with  all  this  poisonous  gas  float- 


212  POTTERISM 

ing  round  them  ?  Oh,  well,  I  suppose  there  are  a  few  minds 
still  which  do;  even  some  journalists  and  politicians  keep  ; 
their  heads;  but  what's  the  use  against  the  pressure?  To  j 
go  in  for  journalism  or  for  public  life  is  to  put  oneself  j 
deliberately  into  the  thick  of  the  mess  without  being  able  / 
to  clean  it  up." 

"After  all,"  said  Jane,  more  moderately,  "it's  all  a  joke. 
Everything  is.  The  world  is." 

"A  rotten  bad  joke." 

"You  think  things  matter.  You  take  anti-Potterism 
seriously,  as  some  people  take  Potterism." 

"Things  are  serious.     Things  do  matter,"  said  the  Rus- 
^~sian  Jew. 

Jane  looked  at  him  kindly.  She  was  a  year  younger 
than  he  was,  but  felt  five  years  older  to-night. 

"Well,  what's  the  remedy  then?" 

He  said,  wearily,  "Oh,  education,  I  suppose.  Education. 
There's  nothing  else.  Learning"  He  said  the  word  with 
affection,  lingering  on  it,  striking  his  hands  on  the  sofa-back 
to  emphasise  it. 

"Learning,  learning,  learning.  There's  nothing  else.  .  .  . 
We  should  drop  all  this  talking  and  writing.  All  this 
confused,  uneducated  mass  of  self-expression.  Self-expres- 
sion, with  no  self  worth  expressing.  That's  just  what  we 
shouldn't  do  with  ourselves — express  them.  We  should  train 
them,  educate  them,  teach  them  to  think,  see  that  they  know 
something — know  it  exactly,  with  no  blurred  edges,  no  fogs. 
Be  sure  of  our  facts,  and  keep  theories  out  of  the  system 
like  poison.  And  when  we  say  anything  we  should  say  it 
concisely  and  baldly,  without  eloquence  and  frills.  Lord, 
how  I  loathe  eloquence!" 

"But  you  can't  get  away  from  it,  darling.  All  right, 
don't  mind  me,  I  like  it.  ...  Well  now,  what  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it?  Teach  in  a  continuation  school?" 


POTTERISM  213 

"No,"  he  said,  seriously.  "No.  Though  one  might  do 
worse.  But  I've  got  to  get  right  away  for  a  time — right 
out  of  it  all.  I've  got  to  find  things  out  before  I  do  any- 
thing else." 

"Well,  there  are  plenty  of  things  to  find  out  here.  No 
need  to  go  away  for  that." 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Western  Europe's  so  hopeless  just  now.  So  given  over 
to  muddle  and  lies.  Besides,  I  can't  trust  myself.  I  shall 
talk  if  I  stay.  I'm  not  a  strong  silent  man.  I  should  find 
myself  writing  articles,  or  standing  for  Parliament,  or  some- 
thing." 

"And  very  nice  too.  I've  always  said  you  ought  to  stand 
for  Labour." 

"And  I've  sometimes  agreed  with  you.  But  now  I  know 
I  oughtn't.  That's  not  the  way.  I'm  not  going  to  join  in 
that  mess.  I'm  not  good  enough  to  make  it  worth  while. 
I  should  either  get  swamped  by  it,  or  I  should  get  so  angry 
that  I  should  murder  some  one.  No,  I'm  going  right  out  of 
it  all  for  a  bit.  I  want  to  find  out  a  little,  if  I  can,  about 
how  things  are  in  other  countries.  Central  Europe.  Rus- 
sia. I  shall  go  to  Russia." 

"Russia!  You'll  come  back  and  write  about  it.  People 
do." 

"I  shall  not.  No,  I  think  I  can  avoid  that — it's  too 
obvious  a  temptation  to  tumble  into  with  one's  eyes  shut." 

'  'He  travelled  in  Russia  and  never  wrote  of  it.!  It  would 
be  a  good  epitaph.  .  .  .  But  Arthur  darling,  is  it  wise,  is 
it  necessary,  is  it  safe?  Won't  the  Reds  get  you,  or  the 
Whites?  Which  would  be  worse,  I  wonder?" 

"What  should  they  want  with  me?" 

"They'll  think  you're  going  to  write  about  them,  of 
course.  That's  why  the  Reds  kidnapped  Keeling,  and  the 
Whites  W.  T.  Goode.  They  were  quite  right,  too — except 


214  POTTERISM 

that  they  didn't  go  far  enough  and  make  a  job  of  them. 
Suppose  they've  learnt  wisdom  by  now,  and  make  a  job  of 
you?" 

"Well  then,  I  shall  be  made  a  job  of.  Also  a  placard 
for  our  sensational  press,  which  would  be  worse.  One  must 
take  a  few  risks.  ...  It  will  be  interesting,  you  know,  to 
be  there.  I  shall  visit  my  father's  old  home  near  Odessa. 
Possibly  some  of  his  people  may  be  left  round  there.  I  shall 
find  things  out — what  the  conditions  are,  why  things  are 
happening  as  they  are,  how  the  people  live.  I  think  I  shall 
be  better  able  after  that  to  find  out  what  the  state  of  things 
is  here.  One's  too  provincial,  too  much  taken  up  with  one's 
own  corner.  Political  science  is  too  universal  a  thing  to 
learn  in  that  way." 

"And  when  you've  found  out?     What  next?" 

"There's  no  next.  It  will  take  me  all  my  life  even  to 
begin  to  find  out.  I  don't  know  where  I  shall  be — in 
London,  no  doubt,  mostly." 

"Do  you  mean,  Arthur,  that  you're  going  to  chuck  work 
for  good  ?  Writing,  I  mean,  or  public  work  ?" 

"I  hope  so.  I  mean  to.  Oh,  if  ever,  later  on,  I  feel 
I  have  anything  I  want  to  say,  I'll  say  it.  But  that  won't  be 
for  years.  First  I'm  going  to  learn.  .  .  .  You  see,  Jane,  we 
can  live  all  right.  Thank  goodness,  I  don't  depend  on  what 
I  earn.  .  .  .  You  and  I  together — we'll  learn  a  lot." 

"Oh,  I'm  going  in  for  confused  self-expression.  I'm 
not  taking  any  vows  of  silence.  I'm  going  to  write." 

"As  you  like.  Every  one's  got  to  decide  for  themselves. 
It  amuses  you,  I  suppose." 

"Of  course,  it  does.  Why  not?  I  love  it.  Not  only 
writing,  but  being  in  the  swim,  making  a  kind  of  name, 
doing  what  other  people  do.  I'm  not  mother,  who  does 
but  write  because  she  must,  and  pipes  but  as  the  linnets  do." 


POTTERISM  215 

"No,  thank  goodness.  You're  as  intellectually  honest  as 
any  one  I  know,  and  as  greedy  for  the  wrong  things." 

"I  want  a  good  time.    Why  not?" 

"Why  not?  Only  that,  as  long  as  we're  all  out  for  a 
good  time,  those  of  us  who  can  afford  to  will  get  it,  and 
nothing  more,  and  those  of  us  who  can't  will  get  nothing  at 
all.  You  see,  I  think  it's  taking  hold  of  things  by  the  wrong 
end.  As  long  as  we  go  on  not  thinking,  not  rinding  out, 
but  greedily  wanting  good  things — well,  we  shall  be  as  we 
are,  that's  all — Potterish." 

"You  mean  I'm  Potterish,"  observed  Jane,  without  ran- 
cour. 

"Oh  Lord,  we  all  are,"  said  Gideon  in  disgust.  "Every 
profiteer,  every  sentimentalist,  ever  muddler.  Every  artist 
directly  he  thinks  of  his  art  as  something  marketable,  some- 
thing to  bring  him  fame;  every  scientist  or  scholar  (if  there 
are  any)  who  fakes  a  fact  in  the  interest  of  his  theory; 
every  fool  who  talks  through  his  hat  without  knowing;  every 
sentimentalist  who  plays  up  to  the  sentimentalism  in  himself 
and  other  people;  every  second-hand  ignoramus  who  takes 
over  a  view  or  a  prejudice,  wholesale,  without  investigating 
the  facts  it's  based  on  for  himself.  You  find  it  everywhere, 
the  taint;  you  can't  get  away  from  it.  Except  by  keeping 
quiet  and  learning,  and  wanting  truth  more  than  anything 
else." 

"It  sounds  a  dull  life,  Arthur.  Rather  like  K.'s  in  her  old 
laboratory." 

"Yes,  rather  like  K.'s.  Not  dull ;  no.  Finding  things  out 
can't  be  dull." 

"Well,  old  thing,  go  and  find  out  things.  But  come  back 
in  time  for  the  wedding,  and  then  we'll  see  what  next." 

Jane  was  not  seriously  alarmed.  She  believed  that  this, 
of  Arthur's,  was  a  short  attack ;  when  they  were  married 


216  POTTERISM 

she  would  see  that  he  got  cured  of  it.  She  wasn't  going  to 
let  him  drop  out  of  things  and  disappear,  her  brilliant 
Arthur,  who  had  his  world  in  his  hand  to  play  with.  Jour- 
nalism, politics,  public  life  of  some  sort — it  was  these  that 
he  was  so  eminently  fitted  for  and  must  go  in  for. 

"You  mustn't  waste  yourself,  Arthur,"  she  said.  "It's 
all  right  to  lie  low  for  a  bit,  but  when  you  come  back  you 
must  do  something  worth  while.  .  .  .  I'm  sorry  about  the 
Fact ;  I  think  you  might  have  stayed  on  and  saved  it.  But 
it's  your  show.  Go  and  explore  Central  Europe,  then  and 
learn  all  about  it.  Then  come  back  and  write  a  book  on 
political  science  which  will  be  repulsive  to  all  but  learned 
minds.  But  remember  we're  getting  married  in  June;  don't 
be  late,  will  you.  And  write  to  me  from  Russia.  Letters 
that  will  do  for  me  to  send  to  the  newspapers,  telling  me 
not  to  spend  my  money  on  hats  and  theatres  but  on  dis- 
tributing anti-Bolshevist  and  anti-Czarist  tracts.  I'll  have 
the  letters  published  in  leaflets  at  threepence  a  hundred,  and 
drop  them  about  in  public  places." 

"I'll  write  to  you,  no  fear,"  said  Gideon.  "And  I'll  be 
in  time  for  the  wedding.  .  .  .  Jane,  we'll  have  a  great 
time,  you  and  I,  learning  things  together.  We'll  have 
adventures.  We'll  go  exploring,  shall  we?" 

"Rather.  We'll  lend  Charles  to  mother  and  dad  often, 
and  go  off.  ...  I'd  come  with  you  now  for  two  gins.  Only 
I  can't." 

"No.     Charles  needs  you  at  present." 
"There's  my  book,  too.     And  all  sorts  of  things." 
"Oh,   your   book — that's   nothing.      Books    aren't   worth 
losing   anything   for.      Don't   you   ever   get   tied    up   with 
books  and  work,  Jane.     It's  not  worth  it.     One's  got  to  sit 
loose.    Only  one  can't,  to  kids ;  they're  too  important.  We'll 
have  our  good  times  before  we   get  our  kids — and   after 
they've  grown  old  enough  to  be  left  to  themselves  a  bit." 


POTTERISM  217 

Jane  smiled  enigmatically,  only  obscurely  realising  that  she 
meant,  "Our  ideas  of  a  good  time  aren't  the  same,  and 
never  will  be." 

Gideon  too,  only  obscurely  knew  it.  Anyhow,  for  both, 
the  contemplation  of  that  difference  could  be  deferred.  Each 
could  hope  to  break  the  other  in  when  the  time  came. 
Gideon,  as  befitted  his  sex,  realised  the  eternity  of  the 
difference  less  sharply  than  Jane  did.  It  was  just,  he 
thought,  a  question  of  showing  Jane,  making  her  under- 
stand. .  .  .  Jane  did  not  think  that  it  was  just  a  question 
of  making  Gideon  understand.  But  he  loved  her,  and  she 
was  persuaded  that  he  would  yield  to  her  in  the  end,  and 
not  spoil  her  jolly,  delightful  life,  which  was  to  advance, 
hand  in  hand  with  his,  to  notoriety  or  glory  or  both. 

Tor  a  moment  both  heard,  remotely,  the  faint  clash  of 
swords.  Then  they  shut  a  door  upon  the  sound,  and  the  man, 
sharen  with  sudden  passion,  drew  the  woman  into  his  arms. 

"I've  been  talking,  talking  all  the  evening,"  said  Gideon 
presently.  "I  can't  get  away  from  it,  can  I.  Preaching, 
theorising,  holding  forth.  It's  more  than  time  I  went  away 
somewhere  where  no  one  will  listen  to  me." 

"There's  plenty  of  talking  in  Russia.  You'll  come  back 
worse  than  ever,  my  dear.  ...  I  don't  care.  As  long 
as  you  do  come  back.  You  must  come  back  to  me,  Arthur." 

She  clung  to  him,  in  one  of  her  rare  moments  of  demon- 
strated passion.  She  was  usually  cool,  and  left  demonstra- 
tion to  him. 

"I  shall  come  back  all  right,"  he  told  her.  "No  fear. 
I  want  to  get  married,  you  see.  I  want  it,  really,  much 
more  than  I  want  to  get  information  or  anything  else. 
Wanting  a  person — that's  what  we  all  want  most,  when  we 
want  it  at  all.  Queer,  isn't  it?  And  hopelessly  personal 
and  selfish.  But  there  it  is.  Ideals  simply  don't  count  in 


2i8  POTTERISM 

Vcomparsion.     They'd  go  under  every  time,  if  there  was  a 
choice." 

Jane,  with  his  arms  round  her  and  his  face  bent  down 
to  hers,  knew  it.  She  was  not  afraid,  either  for  his  career  or 
her  own.  They  would  have  their  good  time  all  right. 


CHAPTER  III 

A  PLACARD  FOR  THE  PRESS 

1 

MARCH  wore  through,  and  April  came,  and  warm 
winds  healed  winter's  scars,  and  the  1921  budget 
shocked  every  one,  and  the  industrial  revolutions  predicted 
as  usual  didn't  come  off,  and  Mr.  Wells's  History  of  the 
World  completed  its  tenth  part,  and  blossom  by  blossom 
the  spring  began. 

It  was  the  third  Easter  after  the  war,  and  people  were 
getting  more  used  to  peace.  They  murdered  one  another 
rather  less  frequently,  were  rather  less  emotional  and 
divorced,  and  understood  with  more  precision  which  profi- 
teers it  was  worth  while  to  prosecute  and  which  not,  and  why 
the  second  class  was  so  much  larger  than  the  first;  and,  in 
general,  had  learnt  to  manage  rather  better  this  unman- 
ageable peace. 

The  outlook,  domestic  and  international,  was  still  what 
those  who  think  in  terms  of  colour  call  black.  The  Irish 
question,  the  Russian  question,  the  Italian-Adriatic  ques- 
tion, all  the  Asiatic  questions,  remained  what  those  who 
think  in  terms  of  angles  call  acute.  Economic  ruin,  political 
bankruptcy,  European  chaos,  international  hostilities  had 
become  accepted  as  the  normal  state  of  being  by  the  in- 
habitants of  this  restless  and  unfortunate  planet. 

219 


220  POTTERISM 


Such  was  the  state  of  things  in  the  world  at  large.  In 
literary  London,  publishers  produced  their  spring  lists.  They 
contained  the  usual  hardy  annuals  and  bi-annuals  among 
novelists,  several  new  ventures,  including  John  Potter's  Giles 
in  Bloomsbury  (second  impression)  ;  Jane  Hobart's  Children 
of  Peace  (A  Satire  by  a  New  Writer) ;  and  Leila  Yorke's 
The  Price  of  Honour.  ("In  her  new  novel,  Leila  Yorke 
reveals  to  the  full  the  glittering  psychology  combined  with 
profound  depths  which  have  made  this  well-known  writer 
famous.  The  tale  will  be  read,  from  first  page  to  last,  with 
breathless  interest.  The  end  is  unexpected  and  out  of  the 
common,  and  leaves  one  wondering."  So  said  the  publisher ; 
the  reviewers,  more  briefly,  "Another  Leila  Yorke.") 

There  were  also  many  memoirs  of  great  persons  by  them- 
selves, many  histories  of  the  recent  war,  several  thousand 
books  of  verse,  a  monograph  by  K.  D.  Varick  on  Catalysers 
and  Catalysis,  and  the  Generation  of  Hydrogen,  and  New 
Wine  by  the  Reverend  Laurence  Juke. 

The  journalistic  world  also  flourished.  The  Weekly  Fact 
had  become,  as  people  said,  quite  an  interesting  and  readable 
paper,  brighter  than  the  Nation,  more  emotional  than  the 
New  Statesman,  gentler  than  the  New  Witness,  spicier  than 
the  Spectator,  more  chatty  than  the  Athenaum,  so  that  one 
bought  it  on  bookstalls  and  read  it  in  trains. 

There  was  also  the  new  Pinkerton  fourpenny,  the  Wednes- 
day Chat,  brighter,  more  emotional,  gentler,  spicier,  and 
chattier  than  them  all,  and  vulgar  as  well,  nearly  as  vulgar 
as  John  Bull,  and  quite  as  sentimental,  but  less  vicious,  so 
that  it  sold  in  its  millions  from  the  outset,  and  soon  had  a 
poem  up  on  the  walls  of  the  tube  stations,  saying — 

"No  other  weeklies  sell 
Anything  like  so  well." 


POTTERISM  221 

which  was  as  near  the  truth  as  these  statements  usually 
are.  Lord  Pinkerton  had,  in  fact,  with  his  usual  acumen, 
sensed  the  existence  of  a  great  Fourpenny  Weekly  Public,  and 
given  it,  as  was  his  wont,  more  than  it  desired  or  deserved. 
The  sixpenny  weekly  public  already  had  its  needs  met;  so 
had  the  penny,  the  twopenny,  the  threepenny,  and  the  shilling 
public.  Now  the  fourpenny  public,  a  shy  and  modest  section 
of  the  community,  largely  clerical  (in  the  lay  sense  of  the 
word)  looked  up  and  was  fed,  Those  brains  which  could 
only  with  effort  rise  to  the  solid  political  and  economic 
information  and  cultured  literary  judgments  meted  out  by 
the  sixpennies,  but  which  yet  shrank  from  the  crudities  of  our 
cheapest  journals,  here  found  something  they  could  read, 
mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest. 

The  Potterite  press  (not  only  Lord  Pinkerton's)  ad- 
vanced like  an  army  terrible  with  banners,  on  all  sections; 
of  the  line. 


Juke's  book  on  modern  thought  in  the  Church  was  a 
success.  It  was  brilliantly  written,  and  reviewed  in  lay 
as  well  as  in  church  papers.  Juke,  to  his  own  detriment, 
became  popular.  Canon  Streeter  and  others  asked  him  to 
collaborate  in  joint  books  on  the  Church.  Modernist  liberal- 
catholic  vicars  asked  him  to  preach.  When  he  preached, 
people  came  in  hundreds  to  hear  him,  because  he  was  an 
attractive,  stimulating,  and  entertaining  preacher.  (I  have 
never  had  this  experience,  but  I  assume  that  it  is  morally 
unwholesome.)  He  had  to  take  missions,  and  retreats,  and 
quiet  days,  and  give  lectures  on  the  Church  to  cultivated 
audiences.  Then  he  was  offered  the  living  of  St.  Anne's, 
Piccadilly,  which  is  one  of  those  incumbencies  with  what 
is  known  as  scope,  which  meant  that  there  were  no  poor 
in  the  parish,  and  the  incumbent's  gifts  as  preacher,  lee- 


222  POTTERISM 

turer,  writer,  and  social  success  could  be  used  to  the  best 
advantage.     He  was  given  three  weeks  to  decide. 


Gideon  wrote  long  letters  to  Jane  from  the  Russian 
towns  and  villages  in  which  he  sojourned.  But  none  of  them 
were  suitable  for  propaganda  purposes;  they  were  critical  but 
dispassionate.  He  had  found  some  cousins  of  his  father's, 
fur  merchants  living  in  a  small  town  on  the  edge  of  a  forest. 
"Clever,  cringing,  nerve-ridden  people,"  he  said.  The  older 
generation  remembered  his  grandparents,  and  his  father  as 
a  bright-eyed  infant.  They  remembered  that  pogrom  fifty 
years  ago,  and  described  it.  "They'll  describe  anything," 
wrote  Gideon.  "The  more  horrible  it  is,  the  more  they'll 
talk.  That's  Russian,  not  Jewish  specially.  Or  is  it  just 
human  ?"  .  .  .  Gideon  didn't  repeat  to  Jane  the  details  he 
heard  of  his  grandparents'  murder  by  Russian  police — de- 
tails which  his  father,  in  whose  memory  they  burned  like  a 
disease,  had  never  told  him. 

"Things  as  bad  as  that  massacre  are  happening  all  the 
time  in  this  pleasant  country,"  he  wrote.  "It  doesn't  matter 
what  the  political  convictions,  if  any,  of  a  Russian  are — he's 
a  barbarian  whether  he's  on  a  soviet  or  in  the  anti-Bol- 
shevik armies.  Not  always,  of  course;  there  are  a  few  who 
have  escaped  the  prevalent  lust  of  cruelty — but  only  a  few. 
Love  of  pain  (as  experienced  by  others)  for  its  own  sake — 
as  one  loves  good  food,  or  beautiful  women — it's  a  queer 
disease.  It  goes  along,  often,  with  other  strong  sensual 
desires.  The  Russians,  for  instance,  are  the  worst  gluttons 
and  profligates  of  Europe.  With  it  all,  they  have,  often,  an 
extraordinary  generous  good-heartedness ;  with  one  hand  they 
will  give  away  what  they  can't  spare  to  some  one  in  need, 
while  with  the  other  they  torture  an  animal  or  a  human 


POTTERISM  223 

/  being  to  death.  The  women  seldomer  do  either ;  like  women 
I  everywhere,  they  are  less  given  both  to  sensual  desire  and  to 
igenerous  open-handedness.  .  .  .  That's  a  curious  thing, 
how  seldom  you  find  physical  cruelty  in  a  woman  of  any  ( 
nationality.  Even  the  most  spiteful  and  morally  unkindest 
little  girl  will  shudder  away  while  her  brother  tears  the 
wings  off  a  fly  or  the  legs  off  a  frog,  or  impales  a  worm 
on  a  hook.  Weak  nerves,  partly,  and  partly  the  sort  of 
high-strung  fastidiousness  women  have.  When  you  come 
across  cruelty  in  a  woman — physical  cruelty,  of  course — you 
think  of  her  as  a  monster;  just  as  when  you  come  on  a  stingy 
man,  you  think  of  him  (but  probably  inaccurately)  as  a 
Jew.  Russians  are  very  male,  except  in  their  inchoate,  con- 
fused thinking.  Their  special  brand  of  humour  and  of 
sentimentality  are  male ;  their  exuberant  strength  and  alive- 
ness,  their  sensuality,  and  their  savage  cruelty,  ...  If  ever 
women  come  to  count  in  Russia  as  a  force,  not  merely  as 
mates  for  men,  queer  things  will  happen.  .  .  .  Here  in 

things  are,  for  the  moment,  tidy  and  ordered,  as  if 

seven  Germans  with  seven  mops  had  swept  it  for  half  a 
year.  The  local  soviet  is  a  gang  of  ruffians,  but  they  do  keep 
things  more  or  less  ship-shape.  And  they  make  people  work. 
And  they  torture  dogs.  ..." 

Later  he  wrote,  "You  were  right  as  to  one  thing;  every 
one  I  meet,  including  my  relations,  is  persuaded  that  I 
am  either  a  newspaper  correspondent  or  writing  a  book,  or, 
more  probably,  both.  These  taints  cling  so.  I  feel  like  a 
reformed  drunkard,  who  has  taken  the  pledge  but  still  carries 
about  with  him  a  red  nose  and  shaky  hands,  so  that  he  gets 
no  credit  for  his  new  sobriety.  What's  the  good  of  my 
telling  people  here  that  I  don't  write,  when  I  suppose  I've 
the  mark  of  the  beast  stamped  all  over  me?  And  they  play 
up;  they  talk  for  me  to  record  it.  ... 

"I  find  all  kinds  of  odd  things  here.     Among  others,  an 


224  POTTERISM 

English  doctor,  in  the  local  lunatic  asylum.  Mad  as  a 
hatter,  poor  devil — now — whatever  he  was  when  they  shut 
him  up.  I  dare  say  he'd  been  through  enough  even  then  to 
turn  his  brain.  I  can't  find  out  who  his  friends  in  England 
are. 


Gideon  stopped  writing,  and  took  Jane's  last  letter  out  of 
his  pocket.  It  occurred  to  him  that  he  was  in  no  sense 
answering  it.  Not  that  Jane  would  mind;  that  wasn't  the 
sort  of  thing  she  did  mind.  But  it  struck  him  suddenly 
how  difficult  it  had  grown  to  him  to  answer  Jane's  letters 
— or,  indeed,  any  one  else's.  He  could  not  flatter  himself 
that  he  was  already  contracting  the  inarticulate  habit,  because 
he  could  pour  forth  fluently  enough  about  his  own  ex- 
periences; but  to  Jane's  news  of  London  he  had  nothing  to 
say.  A  new  paper  had  been  started ;  another  paper  had 
died;  some  one  they  knew  had  deserted  from  one  literary 
coterie  to  another;  some  one  else  had  turned  from  a  dowdy 
into  a  nut;  Jane  had  been  seeing  a  lot  of  bad  plays;  her 
novel — "my  confused  mass  of  self-expression,"  she  called  it 
to  him — was  coming  out  next  week.  All  the  familiar  per- 
sonal, literary,  political,  and  social  gossip,  which  he  too  had 
deal  in  once;  Jane  was  in  the  thick  of  it  still,  and  he  was 
turning  stupid,  like  a  man  living  in  the  country;  he  could 
not  answer  her.  Or,  perhaps,  would  not;  because  the  thing 
that  absorbed  him  at  present  was  how  people  lived  and 
thought,  and  what  could  be  made  of  them — not  the  conscious, 
intellectual,  writing,  discussing,  semi-civilised  people  (semi- 
civilised — what  an  absurd  word !  What  is  complete  civilisa- 
tion, that  we  should  bisect  it  and  say  we  have  half,  or  any 
other  exact  fraction?  Partly  civilised,  Gideon  amended  it 
to),  but  the  great  unconscious  masses,  hardly  civilised  at  all, 
who  shape  things,  for  good  or  evil,  in  the  long  run. 


POTTERISM  225 

Gideon  folded  up  Jane's  letter  and  put  it  away,  and  to 
his  own  added  nothing  hut  his  love. 


Jane  got  that  letter  in  Easter  week.  It  was  a  fine  warm 
day,  and  she,  walking  across  Green  Park,  met  Juke,  who 
had  been  lunching  with  a  bishop  to  meet  an  elderly  princess 
who  had  read  his  book. 

"She  said,  Tm  afraid  you're  sadly  satirical,  Mr.  Juke,'  "  he 
told  Jane.  "She  did  really.  And  I'm  to  preach  at  Sand- 
ringham  one  Sunday.  Yes,  to  the  Family.  Tell  Gideon  that, 
will  you.  He'll  be  so  disgusted.  But  what  a  chance! 
Life  at  St.  Anne's  is  going  to  be  full  of  chances  of  slanging 
the  rich,  that's  one  thing  about  it." 

"Oh,  you're  going  to  take  it,  then?" 

"Probably.  I've  not  written  to  accept  yet,  so  don't  pass 
it  on." 

"I'm  glad.  It's  much  more  amusing  to  accept  things,  even 
livings.  It'll  be  lovely;  you'll  be  all  among  the  clubs  and 
theatres  and  the  idle  rich;  much  gayer  than  Coventry 
Garden." 

"Oh,  gayer,"  said  Juke. 

They  came  out  into  Birdcage  Walk  and  there  was  a  man 
selling  the  Evening  Hustle,  Lord  Pinkerton's  evening  paper. 

"Bloody  massacres,"  he  was  observing  with  a  kind  of 
absent-minded  happiness.  "Bloody  massacres  in  Russia,  Ire- 
land, Armenia,  and  the  Punjab.  .  .  .  British  journalist 
ass'inated  near  Odessa." 

And  there  it  was,  too,  in  big  black  letters  on  the  Evening 
Hustle  placard: — 

"DIVORCE  OF  A  PEERESS. 

MURDER  OF  BRITISH  JOURNALIST  IN  RUSSIA. 
LATE  WIRE  FROM  GATWICK." 


226  POTTERISM 

They  bought  the  paper,  to  see  who  the  British  journalist 
was.  His  murder  was  in  a  little  paragraph  onxthe  front 
page. 

"Mr.  Arthur  Gideon,  a  well-known  British  journalist 
.  .  .  first  beaten  nearly  to  death  by  White  soldiery,  be- 
cause he  was,  entirely  in  vain,  defending  some  poor  Jewish 
family  from  their  wrath  .  .  .  then  found  by  Bolshevists 
and  disposed  of  .  .  .  somehow  .  .  .  because  he  was  an 
Englishman." 


A  placard  for  the  press.  A  placard  for  the  Potter  press. 
Had  he  thought  of  that  at  the  last,  and  died  in  the  bitterness 
of  that  paradox?  Murdered  by  both  sides,  being  of  neither, 
but  merely  a  seeker  after  fact.  Killed  in  the  quest  for  truth 
and  the  war  against  verbiage  and  cant  and,  in  the  end,  a 
placard  for  the  press  which  hated  the  one  and  lived  by  the 
other.  Had  he  thought  of  that  as  he  broke  under  the  last 
strain  of  pain?  Or,  merely,  "These  damned  brutes.  White 
or  Red,  there's  nothing  to  choose  .  .  .  nothing  to 
choose.  ..." 

Anyhow,  it  was  over,  that  quest  of  his,  and  nothing  re- 
mained but  the  placard  which  coupled  his  defeat  with  the 
peeress's  divorce. 

Arthur  Gideon  had  gone  under,  but  the  Potter  press, 
the  flaunting  banner  of  the  great  sentimental  public,  re- 
mained. It  would  always  remain,  so  long  as  the  great  senti- 
mental public  were  what  they  are. 


8 

Little  remains  to  add.     Little  of  Gideon,  for  they  never 
learnt  much  more  of  his  death  than  was  telegraphed  in  that 


POTTERISM  227 

first  message.  His  father,  going  out  to  the  scene  of  his 
death,  may  have  heard  more;  if  he  did,  he  never  revealed  it 
to  any  one.  Not  only  Arthur  had  perished,  but  the  Jewish 
family  he  was  trying  to  defend ;  he  had  failed  as  well  as  died. 
Failed  utterly,  every  way;  gone  under  and  finished,  he  and 
his  pedantry  and  his  exactitude,  his  preaching,  his  hard 
clarity,  and  his  bewildered  bitterness  against  a  world  vulgar 
and  soft-headed  beyond  his  understanding. 

Juke  refused  St.  Anne's,  with  its  chances,  it  congrega- 
tions, and  its  scope.  Neither  did  he  preach  at  Sandringham. 
Gideon's  fate  pilloried  on  that  placard  had  stabbed  through 
him  and  cut  him,  sick  and  angry,  from  his  moorings.  He 
spoke  no  more  and  wrote  no  more  to  admiring  audiences  who 
hung  on  his  words  and  took  his  quick  points  as  he  made  them. 
To  be  one  with  other  men,  he  learnt  a  manual  trade,  and 
made  shoes  in  Bermondsey,  and  preached  in  the  streets  to 
men  who  did  not,  as  a  rule,  listen. 

Jane  would,  no  doubt,  fulfil  herself  in  the  course  of  time, 
make  an  adequate  figure  in  the  world  she  loved,  and  suck 
therefrom  no  small  advantage.  She  had  loved  Arthur 
Gideon ;  but  what  Lady  Pinkerton  and  Clare  would  call  her 
"heart"  was  not  of  the  kind  which  would,  as  these  two  would 
doubtless  put  it  in  their  strange  phraseology,  "break."  Some- 
how, after  all,  Jane  would  have  her  good  time;  if  not  in 
one  way,  then  in  another. 

Lord  and  Lady  Pinkerton  flourish  exceedingly,  and  will 
be  long  in  the  land.  Leila  Yorke  sells  better  than  ever.  Of 
the  Pinkerton  press  I  need  not  speak,  since  it  is  so  well 
qualified  to  speak  for  itself.  Enough  to  say  that  no  fears 
are  at  present  entertained  for  its  demise. 

And  little  Charles  Hobart  grows  in  stature,   under  his 
grandfather's  watching  and  approving  eye.     When  the  time 
comes,  he  will  carry  on  worthily. 
THE  END. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  Slip-25m-9,'60  (B2>936s4)4280 


UCLA-Colleg*  Library 

PR  6025  M11p  1920 


L  005  722  189  7 


College 
Library 


PR 
6025 
Mllp 
1920 


A     001  i 85  276 


